As the years go by, more and more money is being spent by clubs in the transfer market.
Lucrative broadcasting rights, commercial deals and other premium sponsorship means clubs are richer than ever, particularly if they have happen to being playing in the Premier League.
The biggest transfers seen in world football may have happened around continental Europe, sure, but the level of spending in England, and regularity of it, is at an all-time high.
And with Moises Caicedo's £115m move from Brighton to Chelsea now complete, the British transfer record has been smashed a whopping 19 times since the Premier League's inception in 1992.
Here's every player and move to hold that accolade...
Alan Shearer (Southampton to Blackburn): £3.6m - July 1992
Alan Shearer had only scored 23 goals in 118 appearances for Southampton by the time he left for Blackburn Rovers in 1992 - an average a goal just over every five games.
But the soon-to-be Premier League winners, who had earned their place in the top flight via the second tier play-offs, knew exactly what they were getting with Shearer. A player who finish with both feet, bury headers for fun, and smash them in from close range and from long distance.
Not even Blackburn could have imagined Shearer's time at Ewood Park to go as well as it did, mind you. He scored 112 goals for the club four seasons - one of those was severely disrupted by injury - and scored over 30 in each of his final three, including lifting the title in 1995.
Roy Keane (Nottingham Forest to Manchester United): - £3.75m - July 1993
One of Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest pieces of work was nipping in ahead of Blackburn, who were being bankrolled by multi-millionaire Jack Walker, to sign Roy Keane for Manchester United.
It was a genuine move from Ferguson as Keane spearheaded United's domination of the Premier League for the next decade - the Irishman establishing himself at the very top of the game in terms of performance level and leadership qualities.
Seven Premier League crowns and five appearances in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year tells you all you need to know.
Chris Sutton (Norwich to Blackburn): £5m - July 1994
Fresh from scoring 25 goals for Norwich City in the 1993/94 Premier League season, Chris Sutton was picked up by Blackburn for £4m to partner Shearer up front.
The transfer was an immediate success as the dynamic duo, flanked by Stuart Ripley and Jason Wilcox on the wings, scored goals for fun to steer Rovers to the title on the final day of the season. Sutton stayed at the club for further four years, bagging a career-best 18 league goals in Blackburn colours during the 1997/98 season.
Andy Cole (Newcastle to Manchester United): £7m - January 1995
If you're of a certain age, you'll know the saying 'Cole score goals'.
Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United certainly knew it, which is why they decided to fork out £7m to sign Cole from Newcastle United in January 1995, including send Keith Gillespie the other way. He scored 12 in 18 during his first half season in red and another 81 across the next six years.
Multiple Premier League titles followed as a result, with Cole's superb lob over Ian Walker to secure the 1998/99 crown one of his finer moments.
Dennis Bergkamp (Inter to Arsenal): £7.5m - June 1995
Dennis Bergkamp arrived at Arsenal to huge fanfare in 1995 and it didn't take the Dutchman long to drag the club out of the mid-table doldrums.
Under the management of Arsene Wenger, Bergkamp helped transform the Gunners into genuine title contenders, forming a deadly partnership up front with Ian Wright while linking up with the brilliant Marc Overmars on the wing.
Arsenal won the Premier League title in 1997/98, 2001/02 and 2003/04, with Bergkamp's contributions earning him a statue outside the Emirates Stadium.
Stan Collymore (Nottingham Forest to Liverpool): £8.5m - June 1995
"Collymore closing in!" is among the most iconic lines of commentary in Premier League history. It was uttered by Martin Tyler, former voice of Sky Sports, in the final moments of the iconic 4-3 thriller between Liverpool and Newcastle in April 1996.
It also had a defining impact on that season's title race, costing Newcastle in their fierce battle with Manchester United.
Collymore's rise had been rapid to the say the least. He had struggled to make an impact in the top flight as a teenager with Crystal Palace, before joining Nottingham Forest in the second tier afetr a spell at Southend. He then took his prolific lower league form into the Premier League and was poached by Liverpool for a British record fee after just one season (and 22 goals).
Alan Shearer (Blackburn to Newcastle): £15m - July 1996
Alan Shearer's move to boyhood club Newcastle in 1996 wasn't just a British record transfer, it was a world record too - the £15m deal surpassed the £13.2m that Barcelona paid to PSV Eindhoven for Brazilian prodigy Ronaldo only weeks earlier that same summer.
Manchester United were also very keen on Shearer too, but were famously to the deal. Most thought it was Shearer's desire to join his home town team, who had narrowly missed out on the 1995/96 Premier League title and played some of the best football in the country under Kevin Keegan. But then Manchester United chairman has claimed in more recent years there was more to it.
"Shearer had been to Alex Ferguson's house, spoke to him and assured him he wanted to come [to Manchester]," Edwards said on a podcast while promoting a book in 2019.
"The problem, I think, was with the chairman of Blackburn, Jack Walker, who was not a great fan of Manchester United...local rivals, both Lancashire clubs. He did not want Alan Shearer to come to Manchester United. Shearer was quite close to Walker, who was like a father figure to him, and I don't think Alan wanted to upset him by coming to United. And I'm not sure Jack would have let him come anyway, whereas he was happy for Alan to go to Newcastle, I don't think that was a threat to him."
Shearer went on to score 206 goals in 10 years at Newcastle, breaking the club's all-time record previously held for decades by Jackie Milburn.
Rio Ferdinand (West Ham to Leeds): £18m - November 2000
Leeds made Rio Ferdinand the world's most expensive defender when they paid £18m to West Ham in the final weeks of 2000. The club's overspending would later lead to their financial demise, but the good times briefly rolled with Ferdinand dressed in all-white at the back.
A few months after his arrival in west Yorkshire, the centre-back scored a famous goal in a Champions League quarter-final demolition of Deportivo La Coruna.
His presence also coincided with a massive upturn in their domestic form, losing just two Premier League games in the second half of 2000/01 after a poor start to the campain.
Ruud van Nistelrooy (PSV to Manchester United): £19m - April 2001
Manchester United had initially agreed to sign Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2000, only for the transfer to fall through over concerns about fitness. The Dutch stiker then suffered a dreaded ACL injury during a PSV Eindhoven training session, but United were still prepared to shell out a record fee in 2001.
His goalscoring was immediate, netting twice on his Premier League debut and scoring 36 in all competitions on his first season, upping that number to 44 in his second.
Van Nistelrooy finished his United career in 2006 with 150 goals in 219 games, an average of 30 per season, but is arguably an underrated part of the club's modern history because of what the likes of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo went on to achieve in the years that immediately followed.
Juan Sebastian Veron (Lazio to Manchester United): £28.1m - July 2001
"I used to get excited when the club would sign a big player because that’s the nature of the game.
Veron came to the club, he was an excellent player, okay it didn’t work out for him at United, but he was an excellent player," Roy Keane said in 2020, looking back on Juan Sebastian's two seasons at Manchester United.
Veron signed for United having developed a lofty reputation thanks to his exploits in Serie A with Parma and Lazio. There was initial promise, that's for sure, and the Argentine particularly enjoyed the European nights, but struggled to cope with the physical demands of an entire Premier League season without a fixed role in the team.
Injuries compromised his second season at Old Trafford after a promising start to the campaign, and United opted to cut their losses and sell to Chelsea in 2003.
Rio Ferdinand (Leeds to Manchester United): £29.3m - July 2002
Undeterred by Veron's struggles, United broke the British record again the following summer, although Ferdinand's familiarity with the English game perhaps rendered his £29.3m arrival from Leeds substantially less of a risk.
Sir Alex Ferguson never doubted Rio's capacity to become one of the world's best in his position - his displays for England at the 2022 World Cup did that opinion no harm - and he rapidly developed into a stalwart of United's defence. Frighteningly quick and unerringly cool in possession, Ferdinand was the ultimate modern-day centre-back.
He enjoyed a stellar 12-year career at Old Trafford, lifting six Premier League trophies and the Champions League in 2008. He's recognised as one of England's greatest defenders and a modern Manchester United legend.
Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan to Chelsea): £30.6m - July 2006
It took a little while for Ferdinand's record to go, but smashed it was in the summer of 2006 as Chelsea prised former Ballon d'Or winner Andriy Shevchenko away from AC Milan.
The former Dynamo Kyiv hotshot emerged as one of the world's most potent forwards during his time in Lombardy. Shevchenko departed Milan as their second leading scorer of all-time and with a Champions League medal in his back pocket, and the Ballon d'Or on his mantelpiece. However, the Ukrainian striker struggled to adjust to life in west London.
His two years at Chelsea were rather forgettable. He scored here and there, and only rarely did he put together a sustained run of form. The striker's apex was in the rearview mirror, that's for sure, and he returned to Milan on loan for the 2008/09 season before eventually settling back in Kyiv.
Robinho (Real Madrid to Manchester City) - £32.5m - September 2008
This signing ignited the revolution that culminated in Manchester City blossoming into the Premier League's supreme force. On the same day City were bought out by the Abu Dhabi United Group, they quickly went to work and signed Brazilian star Robinho from Real Madrid for a British record £32.5m.
City had been haggling Reggina and Portsmouth for the additions of Rolando Bianchi and Benjani respectively in the preceding months, now they were negotiating with Europe's elite. Money talks.
Supposedly persuaded by City's Brazilian contingent that included former Santos teammate Elano, Robinho signed up for the project in Manchester and made an immediate difference. His first season at the club was superb as he ended the 2008/09 as the Premier League's fourth-highest goalscorer with 14. However, things quickly turned sour for the maverick attacker as injuries reduced his significance dramatically in year two.
Discontent and perhaps fed up of listening to Mark Hughes, Robinho returned to Santos on loan in January 2010 and was never seen again in Manchester.
Fernando Torres (Liverpool to Chelsea): £50m - January 2011
Panic or sheer recruiting incompetence? Either way, Torres was never going to live up to his £50m price tag at Stamford Bridge.
The Spaniard was no longer the phenom that took the Premier League by storm at Liverpool, with injuries reducing his explosiveness and rendering him a nondescript threat. Torres was forced to evolve and while the striker that rocked up at Chelsea was a shell of his peak-self, he remained somewhat useful.
He was never prolific for the Blues during his three-and-a-half years at the club, but he did score one of the most memorable goals in Chelsea's history away at Barcelona in the 2011/12 Champions League semi-finals. For that, many supporters overlooked his mammoth price tag.
Paul Pogba (Juventus to Manchester United): £89m - July 2016
The ultimate maverick. A youthful but ambitious Pogba departed Manchester United for greater first-team opportunities overseas in 2012 and ended up at Juventus.
The Frenchman dazzled during his four years in Turin, swiftly evolving into the personification of a highlight reel and a bona fide superstar. Given his prestige, it was going to cost an arm and a leg for United to bring the midfielder 'home'. But they did exactly that in 2016, handing Juve £89m for his services.
Now, summarising Pogba's second stint at United is rather tricky. While the conclusion was somewhat sombre, the Frenchman did enjoy some scintillating runs of form at Old Trafford. However, it's fair to say he couldn't quite justify United's massive outlay to bring him back, especially given that he eventually left for nothing (again) when he re-signed for Juve in 2022.
Jack Grealish (Aston Villa to Manchester City): £100m - August 2021
Considering their riches, it's pretty remarkable that City only appear on this list twice. Nevertheless, they made Grealish the first-ever Englishman to garner a £100m fee in 2021.
The marvellous Brummie playmaker had put Aston Villa on his back during the 2019/20 season to keep the Villans in the Premier League, and a move away became increasingly inevitable after a fine 2020/21 campaign. City bit the bullet and acquired Grealish for a record fee after triggering his release clause, but it took the wide man a little while to find his feet at the Etihad.
Adjusting to Pep Guardiola's demands is never easy, and Grealish struggled to flourish in his debut season. But he excelled in year two and played an underrated role in City's historic treble triumph.
Enzo Fernandez (Benfica to Chelsea): £106.8m - January 2023
Overpriced, they said. Haha.
Convinced by his talent after an excellent 2022 World Cup with winners Argentina, Chelsea made a big splash in the January transfer window and signed Fernandez for a whopping £106.8m. Despite his stellar form in Qatar during the winter, eyebrows were ubiquitously raised given the midfielder's relative inexperience of European football.
He'd arrived at Benfica just six months prior.
Nevertheless, Fernandez stuck out for all the right reasons during his first few months in west London. He tried his utmost to ensure Chelsea looked competent, but not even he could salvage the Blues.
A controller, playmaker and potentially a final third producer all wrapped into one elegant midfield operator, Fernandez is set to take the Premier League by storm under Mauricio Pochettino at Stamford Bridge.
Moises Caicedo (Brighton to Chelsea): £115m - August 2023
Finding a suitable midfield partner for Fernandez was one of Chelsea's key objectives in the 2023 summer transfer window, and they finally got their man.
Sure, it might've taken yet another British record fee to acquire their desired midfield target, but Moises Caicedo's potential alongside Fernandez renders the outlay somewhat measured given the tandem's projected dynamic.
The Ecuadorian's work on the south coast saw him develop into one of the Premier League's most sought-after assets with Liverpool, Arsenal, and, of course, Chelsea all taking interest. Keen to get as much money as they can for their dominant ball-winning midfielder, Brighton eventually sold for a whopping £115m fee.
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This article was originally published on 90min as Every time British transfer record broken in Premier League era.
