Inter and Manchester City are poised for a showdown in the Champions League final in Istanbul on June 10th. The two clubs have had very different firepower and transfer market strategies in recent years. It’s glaring in particular seeing how much they spent to assemble their current players.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport relays, the English side shelled out nearly €120M to acquire Jack Grealish from Aston Villa in 2021. It’s almost the entire total the Nerazzurri paid for the lineup they fielded against Milan in the semis. André Onana, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Hakan Calhanoglu were Bosman additions. Federico Dimarco is a home-grown talent, but they had to buy him back from Sion for €5M in the past. Mattia Darmian joined in a €3M move, Edin Dzeko for €2M, while Francesco Acerbi is currently on loan from Lazio.
The most expensive pieces are Nicolò Barella (€45M), Alessandro Bastoni (€31M), Lautaro Martinez (€25M), and Denzel Dumfries (€14M). As for the subs, Marcelo Brozovic was worth €8M when he joined, while Inter disbursed an €8M fee to have Romelu Lukaku from Chelsea this season.
The numbers pale in comparison with how much Manchester City invested to build their most recent formation. They spent €40M for Ederson, €76M for Kevin De Bruyne, €60M for Erling Haaland, €71M for Ruben Dias, €55M for John Stones, €52M for Kyle Walker, €70M for Rodrigo, €50M for Bernardo Silva, €30M for Manuel Akanji, and €27M for Ilkay Gundogan, a bargain considering the other fees. The total tally is €637,9M.
Manchester City paid €885,8M in total to put together their current squad, while Inter €296M, the publication relays. The Citizens’ payroll amounts to €214M, the Nerazzurri’s one to €129M.
![]() |
Follow us on Google News for more updates on Serie A and Italian football |