Romelu Lukaku to overtake Neymar as most expensive player ever

Romelu Lukaku is set to overtake Neymar and become the most expensive player of all time as he prepares to return to Chelsea in a £98million deal.

The 28-year-old left Stamford Bridge in 2014 after a three-year spell at the west London outfit.

Since moving to Inter Milan from Manchester United, the Belgian has scored  177 times in all competitions, with 30 of those coming last season as the Italian club won their first Serie A title in 11 years under Antonio Conte.

Lukaku is now set to join Chelsea with the club to pay £97.5M to prise Lukaku away from Inter Milan, a club-record fee for the reigning European champions.

That will take Lukaku’s accumulated transfer fees throughout his career to £293.5M, surpassing Neymar’s record of £246.6M, when he left Barcelona for PSG.

Cristiano Ronaldo is third in the all-time list of transfer fees and led the way before Neymar’s move to PSG, with the megastar moving from Sporting Lisbon to United for £12m in 2003, United to Real Madrid for a then-world record fee of £80m in 2009 and most recently from Real to Juventus for £100m in 2018, which took his total to £192m.

Eden Hazard takes fourth place, with the Belgian one of the world’s hottest young talents when he swapped Lille for Chelsea in 2012 for £32m.