LONDON. Brazilian soccer phenom Neymar made headlines in May when he announced that he would sign with Spanish club Barcelona. In order to acquire Neymar, Barcelona will reportedly pay a transfer fee of $74 million. That’s not how much Neymar will receive, but rather the fee Barcelona has to pay Brazilian team Santos for the 21-year-old’s rights.That may seem like a staggering amount of money just to have the right to pay a player millions more, and yet Neymar’s transfer fee is just the ninth-most expensive in history:To compare the most expensive transfer fees across soccer’s history, we used historical exchange rates to convert each transfer fee to US dollars, and then adjusted for inflation. Of course any way you cut it, the most expensive transfer in history belongs to Cristianio Ronaldo, and nobody comes close.Real Madrid bought the Portuguese striker from Manchester United in June 2009 for a staggering £80 million, or $141 million in today’s dollars. Not only does Ronaldo own soccer’s most expensive transfer fee, but he’s also the world’s ninth-highest paid athlete, collecting $44 million from on-field pay and endorsements, and the second-highest paid soccer player behind David Beckham.Ronaldo’s move to Madrid was one of three expensive transfers in the summer of 2009. The player who comes nearest to Ronaldo on our list is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who moved to rival Barcelona during the same summer; his €66 million transfer would be worth $102 million today. Third on our list is Kaka, who arrived in Madrid days before Ronaldo on a transfer fee of €65 million, or $98 million in today’s dollars.While we may never again see a spectacle like the summer of 2009, three of the transfers on our list have happened since. Fernando Torres moved from Liverpool to Chelsea in 2011 for £50 million ($81 million today), which remains a British record. The other two moves took place in recent weeks: Neymar moved to Barcelona for $74 million, and days later Colombian Radamel Falcao joined Monaco for $77 million.As might be expected, Spanish teams dominate the spending side of our list, having acquired six of the ten players. Real Madrid is obviously the biggest spender, responsible for three of the four most expensive transfer fees - Ronaldo and Kaka are joined by Zinedine Zidane (No. 4, $85 million) - plus Luis Figo at No. 7 ($76 million). Barcelona has Ibra and Neymar.Two Brazilians just missed the cut: Hulk, who moved to Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg for $64 million, and Robinho, one of the select few players to ever leave Real Madrid for a major transfer fee. He wound up with Manchester City in 2008 for $63 million, adjusted for inflation.
