8. Bernabe Ferreyra - Club Athletico Tigre To River Plate (£23,000)
Who? Admittedly, I had never heard of Ferreyra either until attempting to put together this piece. However Ferreyra's stats and the facts about his transfer fee earn him a place in this list. The Argentine striker was bought by River Plate for
£23,000 in 1932, a record that stood for 20 years and remains the longest length of time that a transfer fee record has remained unbroken. In his 8 years of playing after the professional era had started, Ferreyra scored 206 goals in 197 games, achieving a ratio of more than a goal per game. Yet despite his goal scoring exploits, and obvious talent, mysteriously, Ferreyra failed to impress when called up to the Argentine National side, and subsequently only enjoyed a brief international career, featuring in no World Cups. Another mystery in the career of Bernabe Ferreyra was his retirement. The Argentine retired at the tender age of twenty nine, presumably preferring to exit the game at the peak of his powers. River Plate's loss was a loss to the footballing world more widely as we are compelled to wonder what Ferreyra could have gone on to achieve.