Most Expensive Defenders Ever

The list of the top 10 most expensive defenders ever involving defenders has a new addition ahead of the 2023/24 season after Josko Gvardiol sealed a move from RB Leipzig to Manchester City.

The Croatian international joins an elite list of defenders, as he looks forward to a new career chapter at the Etihad Stadium, with the big defensive deals primarily made by Premier League clubs.

1) Harry Maguire – £80m/€97m (Leicester to Man Utd, August 2019)

After vetoing a summer 2018 move for Maguire because of a reticence to pay a potential world-record fee for a defender, Man Utd paid a very much real world-record fee for a defender to sign the Leicester centre-half the following year. And now they could sell him for half the price. Still ruling the list of the most expensive defenders ever.

2) Josko Gvardiol – £77m/€89m (Leipzig to Manchester City, August 2023)

A standout World Cup for Croatia and another season of Bundesliga excellence – although Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland tried their utmost to ruin both respectively – finally earned Gvardiol his long-awaited Premier League move for less than the original world-record demands.

3) Virgil van Dijk – £75m/€84m (Southampton to Liverpool, January 2018)

The benchmark was set by Van Dijk, who claimed "I can't do anything about the price" before doing everything to justify it, helping Liverpool reach a Champions League final within his first few months, winning the lot by his fourth year and raking in awards and acclaim in equal measure.

4) Wesley Fofana – £70m/€80.4m (Leicester to Chelsea, August 2022)

It took three rejected Chelsea bids – worth £50m, £60m and finally £70m with add-ons included – before Leicester finally caved and accepted up to £75m for a defender with 57 top-flight career league appearances. Even before Fofana's subsequent serious knee injury, it wasn't exactly going to plan in his debut season.

5) Lucas Hernandez – £68m/€80m (Atletico Madrid to Bayern Munich, July 2019)

Bayern Munich's record signing has been a bit of a dud, reaching just over 100 games in four years but watching the entire 2020 Champions League final win from the bench and potentially being sold at a considerable loss to PSG.

6) Matthijs de Ligt – £67.8m/€75m (Ajax to Juventus, July 2019)

When the vultures picked at the carcass of Ajax in 2019, De Jong and De Ligt were the parts deemed most succulent. Man Utd might have had their ridiculous reasons for turning the latter down but Juventus were not put off by his father's weight; after three underwhelming years they might wish they had.

7) Ruben Dias – £65m/€71.6m (Benfica to Manchester City, September 2020)

Two days after Jamie Vardy scored a hat-trick in a 5-2 humbling of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola took his Etihad spending on defenders beyond £400m on one of the best of the lot.

8) Matthijs de Ligt – £62m/€70m (Juventus to Bayern Munich, July 2022)

"I was still really young. I went from a kid who did everything well at Ajax to a defender at Juventus, where every little thing I did wrong was seen by everybody," De Ligt has said of his brief time in Turin, which he swapped for a role out of the spotlight as the "boss" of Bayern's defence.

9) Achraf Hakimi – £60m/€71m (Inter to Paris Saint-Germain, July 2021)

After playing for Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Inter, Hakimi had enough of representing clubs with European pedigree and so rocked up in Paris to win a few domestic trophies and keep Kylian Mbappe company.

10) Joao Cancelo – £60m/€65m (Juventus to Manchester City, August 2019)

Swapping places with Danilo, Cancelo went from bit-part player to one of the best in the league, then suddenly Bayern Munich loanee and on the summer 2023 transfer list, all within four ludicrous years.