We welcome you to Football FanCast’s brand new Championship transfer rumours portal dedicated to bringing you the latest updates from the world of the English second-tier football. Here, we hope to bring you everything you may need to stay both informed and entertained on a daily basis.
From those juicy transfer news, latest gossip and social media interactions, all the way to in-depth analysis, interviews, discussions and original opinion pieces, Football FanCast’s Championship portal has you covered. Don’t miss it and join us for the ride as we delve deeper into your favourite league in the world!
There have been some absolutely historic and record-breaking transfers happening in the Championship over the years gone by. However, most of those were actually departures to the Premier League as the English top-brass went fishing down in the second tier to find future stars to be and players on the rise.
And interestingly enough, 2016/17 was the year when records started falling as Georginio Wijnaldum’s £24.7m switch from Newcastle United, who were in the Championship back then, to Liverpool eclipsed the former record-holder, Darren Bent. But Wijnaldum would not stay at the top for too long, though.
Just over a month after that historic transfer for the league, the Magpies shook the Championship once again, this time selling Moussa Sissoko to Tottenham Hotspur for a reported fee of £31.5m, which remains as the top transfer the English second flight has ever seen.
Of course, a year later, in 2017/18, Sunderland would sell Jordan Pickford to Everton for a total of £25.6m – enough to slot into second place but still lower than Sissoko’s switch to Spurs, leaving the record unbroken for the time being.
When it comes to purely arrivals to the league and not exits, Ruben Neves’ £16.1m switch from Porto to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2017/18, when Wolves were still in the second tier, is still the most expensive transfer to date. Still, it is closely followed by Helder Costa’s £15.9m move from, interestingly, Wolves themselves to Leeds United in a transfer that will be on the books for the season 2020/21.
And while the likes of Sissoko, Pickford or Wijnaldum are famous for their big transfer fees, there have been some absolutely huge transfers in the past that have defined both the player’s and the club’s futures.
We simply have to mention Gareth Bale’s switch from Southampton to Tottenham Hotspur back in 2007 as the Welshman ended up becoming a huge star for Spurs, even making Real Madrid break the world record to get him some years further down the road.
On a similar note, Aaron Ramsey leaving his boyhood club to join Arsenal just a year after Bale’s own switch is definitely worth mentioning. The midfielder started his career at Cardiff but would then go on to spend a total of 11 years as one of the Gunners, eventually making the switch to Juventus in 2019.
But there are many more of note, like Bent’s transfer to Charlton in 2005, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s to Arsenal in 2011 or Tim Cahill’s switch from Millwall to Everton in 2004. Needless to say, the Championship has been quite exciting throughout the years.