5 football predictions for the year 2020

#5 The world transfer record will be broken

Will the world transfer fee record - currently held by Neymar - be broken in 2020?

The world transfer fee record hasn’t been broken since the summer of 2017, when Neymar moved from Barcelona to Paris St. Germain for an eye-watering fee of around £198m. It’s hardly surprising that such a huge fee hasn’t been surpassed yet, but could 2020 be the year that sees the record broken again? I’m predicting that it will be.

Every summer transfer window sees big names move from one giant club to another, but this year I suspect we’ll see even more money thrown around, mainly because a lot of Europe’s richest sides aren’t having things their own way in their domestic leagues.

Manchester City are lagging behind at the top of the Premier League, currently sitting in third place, Juventus are behind Inter Milan at the top of Serie A, Bayern Munich are in 3rd place in the Bundesliga, and while PSG are unsurprisingly running away with Ligue 1, if they fail – again – to win the Champions League, there’s every chance they could open their purse strings once again.

Most notably though, it’s been a while since Real Madrid really made a statement in the transfer market; they did sign Eden Hazard in the summer, but despite being a world-class player, the Belgian was never going to break the fee paid for Neymar.

Kylian Mbappe or Harry Kane on the other hand – if Real were to sign one of them – could well fetch a fee over the £200m mark. And if nothing else, Los Blancos love to flex their financial muscles when they’re not winning trophies, as is likely going to be the case in 2019-20.