Money and footballing success are inextricable – and some of the most successful managers in history have spent vast sums in transfer fees on the way to amassing their trophy collections. Here, we take a look at the biggest-spending coaches in football history.
It is increasingly difficult to win anything in top-level football without recruiting top-class talent for enormous sums. Though there has been a trend towards players running down their contracts and becoming free agents, clubs still need to pay fees to build solid squads capable of challenging for titles.
It is no surprise, then, that some of the biggest names in current coaching circles make their way onto this list of big spenders.
Still, there are a couple of surprises. Jurgen Klopp, who has had so much success at Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool, does not make the top 10. Nor does Sir Alex Ferguson, who admittedly retired before transfer fees went truly astronomical. Instead, there are one or two names you might not expect.
So, here are the top 10 biggest spending football managers in history, taking in their combined transfer outlays at all the clubs they’ve managed. Note: all figures are via Transfermarkt.
10. Claudio Ranieri – €864.33million
Perhaps the most surprising name on this list – and the least successful in terms of trophies won – Ranieri’s spending has been accumulated over a very long time and at 18 different clubs.
But given those clubs include Chelsea, Juventus and Monaco (when they were in their splashing-the-cash phase), perhaps we shouldn’t be so shocked.
Ranieri’s two most expensive purchases both came on the same day, June 30 2016, when he signed Colombian attackers Radamel Falcao and James Rodriguez for Monaco for a combined total of €88million.
Weirdly, the Italian’s third-most-expensive signing was Islam Slimani, who joined Leicester for €31million in the wake of the Italian’s only league title as a manager – the 2016 Premier League. The signing didn’t really go to plan, did it?
9. Ernesto Valverde – €866.83million
Another slightly eyebrow-raising inclusion, the vast bulk of Valverde’s spend came in the three seasons when he was Barcelona manager and the club was going absolutely bonkers – 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Barca had just pocketed the whopping €222million fee from the sale of Neymar and, let’s face it, they pissed it up the wall.
On Valverde’s watch, the Blaugrana paid out a transfer fee of over €100million on three…
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