Breaking the Transfer Record Offers No Guarantee of Success to Manchester United
In the summer of 2014, Manchester United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward boasted that his club had the funds and clout to sign any player in the world.
Asked if he could come close to competing with the elite of Real Madrid and Barcelona and break the world transfer record, Woodward boldly declared: "Of course it is within our capabilities. Are we afraid of doing that? No."
"The reality is that we're not afraid of spending significant amounts of money in the transfer market," he said, per David McDonnell of the Daily Mirror. "I stand by what I said, there is no budget. We are in a very strong financial position, we can make big signings."
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For the next two summer transfer windows, though, those words proved to be largely hollow.
Manchester United spent large amounts on good players, but not the type that would overly concern Europe's leading clubs.
Overall, United were purchasing players from the middle shelf of world football, never having the confidence to reach higher.
But it appears that is no longer the case, and this week, United are poised to break the world transfer record to sign Paul Pogba.
The saga has dragged on for most of the summer, but the club confirmed on Sunday that Pogba would have a medical, possibly on Monday, and the Telegraph reported he'd be able to join United for a fee of around £89 million, a new world-record transfer fee.
Still only 23, Pogba is a genuine superstar and has the talent to become one of the best players in the world on his return to Old Trafford.
Here is a player Real Madrid and Barcelona would have dearly loved to sign themselves, but they could not compete with United on this occasion.
The imminent arrival of Pogba, a symbol of United finally using their financial muscle, will be a cause of celebration for the long-frustrated Red Devils fans, but there should also be a note of caution.
History informs us that breaking the world transfer record does not mean success immediately follows.
In fact, since 1996, on the last 10 occasions a club has broken this record, only once (Real Madrid with Luis Figo in 2000) have they gone on to win their domestic league that season.
In the last 20 years, the record for the world transfer fee has been held by 10 players, from Alan Shearer, signed by Newcastle for £15 million in 1996, to current holder Gareth Bale, who cost Real Madrid £86 million three years ago.
While Shearer and Bale were obvious successes, nearly half of the players signed for a world-record transfer fee in the last 20 years have been relative failures and not lived up to their billing.
Just like United are on the brink of doing with Pogba, these clubs thought they were buying a sure thing, a player who would repay their record investment by helping to elevate them and deliver trophies, but it doesn't always work out like that.
In the last 15 years, Real Madrid have an overall excellent record when they have broken the world transfer record—Figo in 2000, Zinedine Zidane in 2001, Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009 and Bale in 2013—but there is a glaring exception: Kaka in 2009.
Before Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, Kaka was universally hailed as the best player in the world and was the last man to stop the fabled duo winning the Ballon d'Or when he put them into second and third place, respectively, to secure the individual honour in 2007.
And so Madrid never thought for a moment they were taking a risk when they paid AC Milan a record fee of £56 million for the Brazilian in the summer of 2009.
Only a few weeks later, Madrid would again break the record when they signed Ronaldo for £80 million, and for the next four seasons, Kaka would remain in the Portuguese's rather sizeable shadow.
The dynamic player who thrilled the San Siro for six seasons never showed up in Spain, hampered by injuries and a loss of form.
His figures dramatically shrunk; in his last two seasons in Italy, he had scored 15 and 16 league goals, but in four seasons in Spain, he never once managed to get into double figures; the most he could muster was eight in his first season.
After four seasons, he was allowed to return to AC Milan on a free transfer, a mammoth loss of £56 million for Real Madrid.
At the turn of the millennium, Serie A was still the world's leading league and where transfer records were broken, but neither Hernan Crespo nor Christian Vieri ever delivered.
By 1999, Vieri was a footballing nomad; always impressing but not enough to stick around for long, and so he had already passed through eight teams in eight seasons when Inter Milan paid £32 million for him.
Vieri scored regularly for Inter, 103 goals in 143 games over six seasons, but his signing was meant to usher in a new era of dominance for Inter in Serie A, and yet he didn't win a single Scudetto. The only silverware he helped to bring to the San Siro was the Italian Cup in 2005, his last season for the club.
In 2000, the reigning Serie A champions Lazio felt emboldened to break the world transfer record when they signed Argentinian striker Crespo from Parma for £36 million.
His signing was intended to cement their position at the summit of Serie A, but even with Crespo, who would score 26 league goals in his first season at the Stadio Olimpico, Lazio failed to defend their title and lost out to city rivals AS Roma.
In his second season, an injury-hit Crespo would only score 13 league goals, and Lazio, who again failed to add any silverware, were happy to allow him to join Inter in the summer of 2002.
Lazio's record investment brought goals but not a single major trophy.
Arguably, the most spectacular failure was when Real Betis surprisingly broke the record in 1998 by spending £21.5 million on the Brazilian winger Denilson.
He was blessed with wonderful pace and balance and had excited at home in Brazil with Sao Paulo, but he did not travel well, and the record fee acted only as a burden in Spain where he clearly struggled and scored only twice in his first season.
Worse was to follow in his second season, when he could not stop Betis from being relegated.
Denilson was to be Betis' passport into the elite, and though they would win promotion back to La Liga, overall he would preside over a hugely disappointing seven seasons at the club.
And so Pogba now prepares to become the world's most expensive player in history, and we await to see if this inspires him like Bale, Ronaldo and Zidane, or if it burdens him like Kaka and Denilson.
Manchester United will make a statement by breaking the record to bring Pogba back to Old Trafford, but then the hard work begins, because spending big offers no guarantee of success.
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