1987–88 in English football The "Today" newspaper cancels its sponsorship of the Football League after just one year, and less than two weeks before the new season is due to begin. 6 August 1987 – Peter Beardsley becomes the most expensive player to move between British clubs when he joins Liverpool in a £1.9 million deal from Newcastle United. Britain's first million-pound player, Trevor Francis, returns to Britain when Graeme Souness signs him for Rangers in a £70,000 deal from Atalanta of Italy. 7 August 1987 – Portsmouth midfielder Mick Kennedy is fined £5,000 for claiming in a national newspaper that he was "the
Transfer (association football) by an English club came in the summer of 1988, when Tottenham Hotspur signed Paul Gascoigne from Newcastle United. Within weeks of Gascoigne's transfer, the national record was broken again when Tony Cottee moved from West Ham United to Everton for £2.2 million, and again shortly afterwards when Ian Rush returned to Liverpool from Juventus for £2.8 million. In the space of two months in the summer of 1992, three transfers broke the record, all by Italian clubs: Jean-Pierre Papin transferred from Marseille to Milan, becoming the world's first ever £10 million player. Almost immediately, rivals Juventus topped that with