Manchester City’s sale of Julian Alvarez in the summer transfer window is one of the biggest Premier League transfers to another country of all time.
Though Manchester City have very deep pockets, they are also masters at making money with player sales to fund their signings.
This summer alone, City recouped over £50m by selling youngsters like Liam Delap and Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who have hardly had a kick in Pep Guardiola’s first team.
That’s before you even take Julian Alvarez’s move to Atletico Madrid into account.
After two years in which he won all there is to win at City, Alvarez has headed to Atletico in a bid to find a guaranteed starting place at a top club.
The Blues have said goodbye to a quality player who was crucial to their recent success but they sure will be happy with the massive fee they received for him.
- Who is Julian Alvarez? The story of the striker who won it all at Man City before joining Atletico Madrid
How much did Atletico Madrid pay for Julian Alvarez?
City have made a healthy profit on Alvarez, a player they spent just £14m on to sign from River Plate.
The 24-year-old was signed in January 2022 but remained in Argentina until the summer. Though his arrival was overshadowed by Erling Haaland, Alvarez still contributed massively to the treble triumph and scored 36 goals in his 103 games for the club.
According to Manchester Evening News journalist Simon Bajkowski, Atletico have paid an initial £64m for Alvarez but that fee could rise as high as £81.5m if certain clauses are met.
As a result, it’s one of the highest transfer fees generated by a Premier League club selling to a team from a foreign country of all time.
Biggest Premier League sales in history
Should City eventually be paid the full £81.5m for Alvarez, then it will be the fifth most expensive sale in the history of the Premier League.
That’s higher than the £80m Real Madrid paid to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United in 2008.
There are only four transfers to clubs outside the Premier League that have fetched a higher price: Gareth Bale to Real Madrid (£85.3), Harry Kane to Bayern Munich (£100m), Eden Hazard to Real Madrid (130m) and Phillippe Coutinho to Barcelona (£146m).
If you expand the list to include sales between Premier League clubs then Alvarez plummets down the list to 14th, with the likes of City’s £100m purchase of Jack Grealish and the moves of Declan Rice, Moises Caicedo and Romelu Lukaku higher up.
