Football Transfers Trivia
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49 free Football Transfers trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Transfer fees are football's other scoreboard. The first one was £100 in 1893; by 2025 the British record alone stood at £125 million, and the women's record had crossed £1 million. Between those marks lie drunk negotiators, a fake cousin of George Weah, a striker locked out of a stadium on deadline day and a midfielder who changed European employment law. This quiz covers the milestones decade by decade, the free transfers that enraged supporters, the swaps, loans, buy-backs and release clauses, the agents who got rich, and the court cases that followed Bosman. Every stem carries a clue for anyone who does not know the answer outright, and every explanation adds the one detail worth repeating. It suits a pub quiz round, a deadline-day group chat or a settle-the-argument test between friends. The opening ten are the broadest; the deep cuts come later.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country has required a buyout clause in every professional footballer's contract since 1985?
Spain
Spain treats a footballer like any other worker who may buy out his contract, which is why Neymar's €222 million clause could simply be paid in full.
Q 02Which Southampton signing of 1996 got a contract after a phone call claimed he was George Weah's cousin?
Ali Dia
Ali Dia came on as a substitute in a league game and was substituted himself after 53 minutes, the whole of his Southampton career on a one-month contract.
Q 03Which forward became Britain's first £1 million player when Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest signed him in 1979?
Trevor Francis
Trevor Francis repaid the fee within months by scoring the winner in the 1979 European Cup final against Malmö, and Clough unveiled him while dressed for squash.
Q 04Leeds rang Manchester United about Denis Irwin in 1992 and ended up selling which forward for about £1 million?
Eric Cantona
Eric Cantona moved on 26 November 1992, months after helping Leeds win the last old First Division title; chairman Bill Fotherby's call had found Irwin not for sale.
Q 05Which England centre-back crossed north London on a free transfer from Tottenham to Arsenal in 2001?
Sol Campbell
Sol Campbell won two league titles and three FA Cups at Arsenal, including the unbeaten Invincibles season, and remains a hate figure to Spurs supporters.
Q 06Manchester United announced a deal to sell which midfielder to Barcelona in 2003, before he joined Real Madrid instead?
David Beckham
David Beckham's choice was a bitter blow to Joan Laporta, who had just won Barcelona's presidency on a promise to bring him to the Nou Camp.
Q 07Birmingham retired which 17-year-old's number 22 shirt in 2020, three years before Real Madrid paid €103 million?
Jude Bellingham
Jude Bellingham had played just one senior season, and Birmingham said the shirt was retired 'to remember one of our own and to inspire others' as he left for Dortmund for an initial £25 million.
Q 08Which Brazilian playmaker left Liverpool for Barcelona in January 2018 for a fee rising to £142 million?
Philippe Coutinho
Philippe Coutinho's initial fee was £105 million, and Nike had advertised his Barcelona shirt on 31 December, six days before the clubs announced an agreement.
Q 09Which Dutch centre-back's £75 million move from Southampton in January 2018 was then a world record for a defender?
Virgil van Dijk
Virgil van Dijk nearly never arrived: six months earlier Liverpool had publicly apologised to Southampton and dropped their interest after being accused of an illegal approach.
Q 10Which Swedish striker's £125 million deadline-day move from Newcastle to Liverpool in 2025 set a British record?
Alexander Isak
Alexander Isak forced the issue in August by publicly accusing Newcastle of breaking a promise to let him leave, which the club denied within hours.
Q 11Which teenager joined Paris Saint-Germain from Monaco in 2017 in a deal eventually worth €180 million?
Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé first arrived on a season's loan with an obligation to buy, a structure that kept PSG inside Financial Fair Play limits weeks after their record outlay on Neymar.
Q 12Which England international became the Bundesliga's costliest signing when Bayern paid Tottenham more than €100 million in 2023?
Harry Kane
Harry Kane left Tottenham as the club's record scorer but had never won a major trophy; the Bundesliga title in his second season in Munich was his first.
Q 13Which Norwegian striker joined Manchester City in 2022 after the club met his €60 million Dortmund release clause?
Erling Haaland
Q 21Which Spanish striker did Real Madrid bring back from Juventus in 2016 by triggering a €30 million buy-back clause?
Álvaro Morata
Álvaro Morata won La Liga and the Champions League in his season back, then left for Chelsea in 2017 for a club-record fee of around £60 million.
Q 22Which Canadian forward became women's football's first £1 million signing, moving from Liverpool to Arsenal in 2025?
Olivia Smith
Olivia Smith signed a four-year contract at Arsenal; her father had filmed her matches as a child and kept a handwritten record of her goals, assists and touches.
Q 23Which France midfielder's £1.43 million move from PSG to London City Lionesses in 2025 set the women's record?
Grace Geyoro
Erling Haaland's £51.2 million clause proved a bargain: City won the treble in his debut season, only the second English club ever to do so.
Q 14Which striker agreed a Bayern Munich pre-contract in January 2014 and left Dortmund that summer on a free transfer?
Robert Lewandowski
Robert Lewandowski played his final Dortmund match in the 2014 German Cup final against Bayern, the club he had already agreed to join.
Q 15Which Belgian striker rejoined Chelsea for a club-record £97.5 million in 2021, then was loaned back to Inter?
Romelu Lukaku
Romelu Lukaku's second Chelsea spell unravelled within months; after Inter he was loaned to Roma too, before joining Napoli permanently in 2024.
Q 16Which Newcastle striker's £35 million deadline-day move to Liverpool in 2011 was then a record for a British player?
Andy Carroll
Andy Carroll was bought within hours of Fernando Torres's £50 million sale to Chelsea, after Newcastle had rejected Liverpool's opening £30 million bid that same deadline day.
Q 17Which England playmaker became the first £100 million British player when Manchester City signed him in August 2021?
Jack Grealish
Jack Grealish moved when City activated the £100 million release clause in his contract at his boyhood club, eclipsing Paul Pogba's 2016 transfer as the biggest in British football.
Q 18FIFA's ban on which practice, effective May 2015, followed the Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano affair at West Ham?
Third-party ownership
Third-party ownership meant outside investors, not West Ham, held the pair's economic rights, and the club was fined a record £5.5 million over the contracts.
Q 19Which goalkeeper became the world's costliest when Chelsea paid his €80 million Athletic Bilbao release clause in 2018?
Kepa Arrizabalaga
Kepa Arrizabalaga's record came only weeks after Alisson's £66.8 million move to Liverpool had set the previous mark.
Q 20Which centre-back set British records joining Leeds for £18 million, then Manchester United for about £30 million?
Rio Ferdinand
Rio Ferdinand left as Leeds slid into financial trouble; Alex Ferguson said United had been hopeful of a deal because of Leeds' financial position.
Grace Geyoro's record buyers were a newly promoted club: London City Lionesses were only just starting their first season in the Women's Super League.
Q 24Which Zambian striker joined Bay FC of the NWSL in February 2024 for a then women's world record of about £625,000?
Racheal Kundananji
Racheal Kundananji arrived from Madrid CFF, and her record was beaten within a year by Naomi Girma's move to Chelsea.
Q 25Which goalkeeper's 100 billion lire move from Parma to Juventus in 2001 stood as the goalkeeping record for 17 years?
Gianluigi Buffon
Gianluigi Buffon took the number 1 shirt from Edwin van der Sar, and his fee remained Juventus's own record purchase until Gonzalo Higuaín arrived in 2016.
Q 26Which midfielder left AC Milan on a free transfer in 2011 and won Serie A in his first season at Juventus?
Andrea Pirlo
Andrea Pirlo had played only 17 league games in his last Milan season under Massimiliano Allegri, then won four straight Serie A titles in Turin.
Q 27Which Bulgarian striker chose Manchester United on 1 September 2008 after Tottenham also accepted a Manchester City bid?
Dimitar Berbatov
Dimitar Berbatov insisted he had never even considered City's offer, and he ended his first season at Old Trafford as a Premier League champion.
Q 28Which Argentine winger's £59.7 million move from Real Madrid to Manchester United in 2014 was then a British record?
Ángel Di María
Ángel Di María had fallen out with the Madrid board in the summer he helped win the Champions League, and he lasted only one season in England.
Q 29Which German playmaker's £42.5 million move from Real Madrid in September 2013 was then Arsenal's record signing?
Mesut Özil
Mesut Özil became the most expensive German player in history and helped end Arsenal's nine-year trophy drought in his first season.
Q 30Which Chelsea midfielder's £60 million move to Shanghai SIPG in January 2017 set an Asian transfer record?
Oscar
Oscar, still only 25, left for reported wages of about £400,000 a week, and his new club is now known as Shanghai Port.