Progression of the British football transfer fee record lagged behind those paid by clubs in Italy, France and Spain to take British players abroad until 1995, when Manchester United paid Newcastle United £7,000,000 for Andy Cole. The fees paid by the Premier League's top clubs began to increase at a rapid rate, with Alan Shearer commanding the first £15,000,000 fee in 1996, and the new millennium heralding the first £30,000,000 transfer, although sources differ as to whether this barrier was broken by Rio Ferdinand's move to Manchester United in 2002 or Andriy Shevchenko's transfer to Chelsea four years later for some reason, however Veron' s transfer to United
Transfer (association football) English record was broken twice in the space of a few weeks, both times by Manchester United, who first signed Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy for £19 million, and then signed Argentine midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón for £28.1 million. A year later, they broke the English record fee again by signing Rio Ferdinand from Leeds United for a fee in the region of £29 million, 11 years after Liverpool had paid a mere tenth of that figure to set an English record transfer fee when they signed Dean Saunders. It took two weeks for the record to be broken when