Why Kaka's £56m move from AC Milan to Real Madrid is not a world record

09 June 2009 12:23
When is a world record not a world record? Kaka's eye-watering £56million transfer from AC Milan to Real Madrid has been trumpeted by English media as the biggest fee paid in the history of football - topping the £47m Madrid paid to Juventus for Zinedine Zidane in 2001. But the rest of the world calls it just the second-highest purchase. The plumetting value of the pound is to blame. Zidane actually cost Madrid 73.5m euros when you could get about 1.65 euros to the pound, while the deal for Kaka is worth a measly 65m euros, with the exchange rate less than 1.2. World record transfers (as seen in Britain): What credit crunch? Kaka's fee has stunned the football world 1 £56m - Kaka (AC Milan - Real Madrid) 2 £47m - Zinedine Zidane (Juventus - Real Madrid) 3 £37m - Luis Figo (Barcelona - Real Madrid) French flair: Zidane 4 £34m - Hernan Jorge Crespo (Parma - Lazio) 5 £34m - Robinho (Real Madrid - Manchester City) 6 £32m - Gianluigi Buffon (Parma - Juventus) Italian 7 £31m - Christian Vieri (Lazio - Inter Milan) 8 £30.8m - Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan - Chelsea) 9 £30.75m - Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham - Manchester United) 10 £30.6m - Pavel Nedved (Lazio - Juventus) Top 10 British transfer records: Best of British: But it's Brazilian Robinho who is the costliest player on our shores 1 £34m - Robinho (Real Madrid - Manchester City) 2 £30.8m - Andriy Shevchenko (AC Milan - Chelsea) 3 £30.75m - Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham - Manchester United) 4 £29.1m - Rio Ferdinand (Leeds - Manchester United) 5 £28.1m - Juan Sebastian Veron (Lazio - Manchester United) 6 £27m - Wayne Rooney (Everton - Manchester United) 7 £24.4m - Michael Essien (Lyon - Chelsea) 8 £24m - Didier Drogba (Marseille - Chelsea) 9 £21m - Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City - Chelsea) 9 £21m - Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid - Liverpool) 10 £20.3m - Robbie Keane (Tottenham - Liverpool)

Source: Daily_Mail