The other day we published the top 20 biggest transfers of the winter – Chelsea newcomer Mikhail Mudrik took fourth place in it. But it is incorrect to compare the amounts without taking into account inflation – yes, it also exists in football.

In 2019, the concept was dismantled by Vadim Lukomsky. Here are short abstracts:

• 10 million euros in the 90s (ok, then there was no euro, but there was an ECU , at the rate of which retrotransfers can be converted into euros) and 10 million euros now are completely different money.

• Recalculating the cost of transfers taking into account the rate of world inflation (or the inflation of some country) is also meaningless. Because the football business has its own life, money turnover is growing at the highest rate – in isolation from any other economy.

• How to be? One of the ways was proposed in 2010 by Paul Tomkins and Graham Riley, who created the transfer index (now it is calculated by the British credit bureau TotallyMoney ). It’s simple: the average cost of a transfer (in the top 5 leagues) in a particular year is taken – the transfer index is displayed on the difference between the years (the index of the 94th in relation to 2019 is 14.22, the 95th – 9.5, 96 th – 7.3 and so on). The calculations have been carried out since the 92nd – because more or less reliable data on transactions have been published only since the beginning of the 90s.

We have dealt with football inflation and now we will review the top winter transfers taking into account new knowledge. Let us first recall the list without it.

And here’s what that top would look like adjusted for inflation.

•‎ Fernando Torres is the most expensive winter transfer since 1991. But the reason for the failure at Chelsea was probably not the price tag, but the damned ninth number.