David Nugent's recent transfer to Portsmouth is widely believed to have set a new club record for the amount of money the club received for his move. However, the often opaque nature of football finance means nothing is ever certain about transfer fees. Did Portsmouth pay 6 million or 7 million? Or did they pay 4.5 million up front with possible further bonuses up to 5.7 million depending on various criteria? Really, only the two clubs' financial officers know and that is as it should be, as a private financial transaction between two companies. What does seem certain is that a new record has been set and it seems timely to look back at the way the record sum received by North End for the transfer of players out of the club has progressed.
Given the uncertainty over fees, there are no doubt other opinions on the precise figures involved but those quoted below are the ones cited by the club at the time and give some idea of how transfer costs have grown since the Second World War.
The first time we received a figure of £20,000 for one of our players was when Bobby Langton moved to our Lancashire rival Bolton Wanderers in 1949, after we had paid a similar fee in obtaining him from Blackburn Rovers the previous season. Not surprisingly, Langton was a proven goalscorer and the trend for such players attracting the highest fees has largely continued, although not in all cases.
Winger Peter Thompson's 1963 move to Anfield cost Liverpool double the fee we had received for Langton and this doubled again four years later when Howard Kendall followed him to Merseyside for £80,000, although he went to the opposite side of Stanley Park in joining Everton.
North End's joint second-highest goalscorer of all time set the next milestone, when Alex Bruce moved to the north-east. Newcastle United paid £150,000 for the Scot but to the great delight of many, the move didn't work out and Alex returned to Deepdale 18 months later to set all kinds of scoring records over the next few years. His partnerships with Mike Elwiss and Michael Robinson in particular were very prolific and both were to bring in important cash to the club during the lean 1970s.
Robinson's move to Manchester City in 1979 smashed the existing club record when the Maine Road club astonished everyone by paying £765,000 for the largely unproven striker. The transfer serves to illustrate the complex nature of determining precisely how much the buying club pays and the selling club gains. David Hunt has shown that North End only actually received £650,000 for Robinson's transfer, the remainder of the £765,000 being made up of VAT and other charges.
With the increased insistence of clubs in sell-on clauses and down payments followed by additional payments depending on appearances, goals scored, promotions and international caps, the precise figures involved have become increasingly speculative in recent years. Another aspect of transfer fees that is often overlooked is that clubs do not actually buy a player. In reality, it is the player's registration with the relevant footballing authorities that is bought and sold. The transfer fee is really compensation paid by the buying club to the selling club for that registration.
The million pounds barrier was broken when Preston-born Kevin Kilbane moved south to the Hawthorns in 1997 and then Manchester City again raised the bar when Kevin Keegan insisted on paying us at least £4 million for Jon Macken. How much extra that goal from near the halfway line against City put on Jon's transfer fee will probably never be known but it was certainly the sort of sum North End could not turn down. Speculation at the time put the fee as high as £5 million but this was again based on various milestones being reached. Given Jon's injury plagued time at Maine Road, it is unlikely the final fee ever approached the figure we have just received for David Nugent.
The question on everyone's mind now is who will be the next player to set a new record for a transfer away from Deepdale and how much will he cost? One thing is for sure - he will be some player, whoever he is!
