Transfer (association football) to Derby County for £24,000 in March 1949. The record was broken seven further times between 1949 and 1961, when Luis Suárez was sold by Barcelona to Inter Milan for £152,000, becoming the first ever player sold for more than £100,000. In 1968, Pietro Anastasi became the first £500,000 player when Juventus purchased him from Varese, which was followed seven years later with Giuseppe Savoldi becoming the first million pound player when he transferred from Bologna to Napoli. In English football, the first £1 million fee occurred in 1979, when Nottingham Forest signed striker Trevor Francis from Birmingham City. Later
Transfer (association football) Ronaldo moved the following year to Inter Milan from Barcelona for a fee of £17 million, which was followed in 1998 by the shock transfer of his fellow countryman Denílson from São Paulo of Brazil to Real Betis of Spain for a fee of approximately £21 million. In 1999 and 2000, Italian clubs returned to their record-breaking ways, with Christian Vieri transferring from Lazio to Inter for £28 million, while Hernán Crespo's transfer from Parma to Lazio ensured he became the first player to cost more than £30 million. The transfer of Vieri led to the suicide of a Lazio