The ten biggest transfer fees for Greek players

By Stephen Kountourou

In a social media post a couple of years ago on X, formerly known as Twitter, a user by the name of @KingVasilopita posted a football meme template featuring Greek winger Christos Tzolis after his move to then-Premier League side Norwich City. The post in question is displayed below:

Credit to @KingVasilopita

While it is a satire of the varying prices at which players of different nationalities transfer between clubs, it does highlight the general opinion among Greek football supporters that our players, up till recently, have been undervalued in the market. Tzolis, for example, went for only €11.5 million including add-ons despite being one of the biggest talents at PAOK and in the Greek Super League at the time. Over the last 12 months, however, the market's landscape has undergone significant changes. All of a sudden, Greek players are not only being linked with moves to teams from Europe's top five leagues, but to some of the biggest clubs in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France, for huge fees.

The likes of Tzolis, who has since rebuilt his career from that infamous move to England, was heavily linked with AC Milan and Manchester United. Konstantinos Karetsas has caught the interest of Bayern Munich, Juventus and Arsenal, while Olympiakos’s talented trio of academy graduates, Christos Mouzakitis, Konstantinos Tzolakis and Babis Kostoulas, have all had suitors even before the season ended recently, after claiming the domestic double.

Of course, this blog comes due to the last of those three aforementioned players, Kostoulas, signing for Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion for an astronomical fee never seen for a Super League player before. So, in my mind, there was no better time to look at the ten biggest transfer fees for Greek players.

Kostas Mitroglou - Olympiakos to Fulham for €15.2 million

After the first half of the 2013/14 season, Kostas Mitroglou had Europe at his feet. For Olympiakos, he scored a hat-trick in the Champions League, was the Greek Super League top scorer and helped Greece qualify for the 2014 World Cup, with three goals over a two-legged playoff against Romania. Naturally, he had plenty of suitors. Premier League side Fulham eventually won the race to acquire Mitroglou, and he joined the West Londoners for €15.2 million, becoming both Fulham's record signing and the most expensive transfer for a Greek player at the time. Unfortunately, a combination of injuries, bad luck, and a lack of trust from manager Felix Magath, meant that he made only three league appearances as Fulham was relegated. Some have since labelled Mitroglou as the worst January signing in the history of the Premier League. I wrote an article attempting to debunk that assumption in 2024. The next summer, he returned to Olympiakos on loan, where he built himself back to his scintillating best, before once again becoming one of the most potent strikers in Europe, at Benfica.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos - Borussia Dortmund to Arsenal for €16 million

Known by many abroad simply as Sokratis, the Greek centre back was rated as one of the best in the Bundesliga during his time at Borussia Dortmund. After a four-year stint with the German giants, he became Unai Emery’s third summer signing as the new manager of Arsenal for €16 million while also joining former Dortmund teammates, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, in North London.

Sokratis's time with the Gunners is a polarising one. He started consistently under Emery in his first season, helping the club finish fifth in the Premier League, narrowly missing out on Champions League football to local rivals Tottenham Hotspur and losing in the Europa League final to fellow London rivals Chelsea. But with the decline of the club's form during the first half of the 2019/20 season, Emery was sacked and in his place came Mikel Arteta. 

Despite initially starting under the Spanish manager and becoming the first Greek player to lift the FA Cup, like several players who joined Arsenal before Arteta became head coach, Sokratis was eventually phased out of the first team and dropped entirely from their Premier League squad at the start of the 2020/21 season. 

He had his contract terminated by mutual consent in January 2021, joining Olympiakos on a free transfer.

Panagiotis Retsos - Olympiakos to Bayer 04 Leverkusen for €17.5 million

A cautionary tale to any young, highly rated Greek prospect looking to leave their homeland for pastures new, Panagiotis Retsos was one of the shining lights of Olympiakos' rather average 2016/17 season when he was starting at such a young age for Thrylos under former manager Paulo Bento. Naturally, after his first full senior campaign, helping the Piraeus side win their seventh straight Super League title and competing in the Europa League, he attracted a lot of interest. With the summer transfer window drawing to a close, Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen paid €17.5 million, which was then the record sale for a Greek player at the time, to bring Retsos to Germany. The talented defender enjoyed a decent first campaign in the league, but persistent thigh injuries started to hamper Retsos, setting his career back in Germany. During several loan spells to Sheffield United, Saint-Étienne, Hellas Verona, and Olympiakos, Retsos was unable to find fitness and consistent game time. It was only once he returned to Piraeus permanently that the now 26-year-old reignited his career, becoming a mainstay at centre back for the Greek champions and helping Thrylos win a famous UEFA Conference League title in 2023/24.

Stefanos Tzimas - PAOK to 1.FC Nuremberg for €18 million

A player who appears twice on this list, Stefanos Tzimas, is the perfect reflection of PAOK’s excellent work at producing academy players in recent times. The young striker impressed for the U19s and PAOK’s B team before being given a shot at the senior squad, even contributing with four goals during the Thessaloniki side’s title win in 2023/24. 

To many PAOK supporters' surprise, however, Tzimas was sent out on loan to 2.Bundesliga side 1.FC Nuremberg, rather than giving him the chance to fight for his place in Razvan Lusescu’s squad. Tzimas lit up the German second division last season, scoring 12 goals in 23 league matches. 

Midway through the 2024/25 season, and following Premier League side Brighton's interest in purchasing Tzimas, Nuremberg paid PAOK €18 million to facilitate the transfer of the Greek striker to the south of England.

Vangelis Pavlidis - AZ Alkmaar to Benfica for €18 million

After a few seasons in the Netherlands, first at Willem II and then with AZ Alkmaar, Vangelis Pavlidis established himself as one of the best strikers in Dutch football. 

At the end of his final season in the Eredivisie, where he was the League top scorer with 29 goals, Portuguese giants Benfica came calling and signed Pavlidis for €18 million and followed in the footsteps of other Greek players, like Karagounis, Katsouranis, Mitroglou, Samaris and Vlachodimos who played for the Lisbon side. 

The 26-year-old has enjoyed an excellent first season in Portugal, scoring 19 goals and assisting 7 in the league, and 29 in all competitions, including a Champions League hat-trick against Barcelona. So, as it stands, money well spent for Benfica.

Konstantinos Mavropanos - VFB Stuttgart to West Ham United for €20 million

From being labelled an Arsenal flop, to one of the best defenders in the Bundesliga and back to supposedly being a bad player again, somewhere in the middle is the truth when it comes to Konstantinos Mavropanos. 

The former PAS Giannina defender, after being named in the Bundesliga team of the season on multiple occasions during his time at Stuttgart, returned to the Premier League, this time as a much more experienced player, to West Ham United for €20 million. 

People forget that Dinos had a decent first season in East London, rotating with fellow centre backs Nayef Aguerd and Kurt Zouma in David Moyes’s squad and even scored the goal against his former club Arsenal, in a 2-1 win that would be one of the catalysts for the Gunners missing out on the Premier League title.

However, we cannot shy away from the fact that Mavropanos endured a pretty poor 2024/25 campaign. While a vocal minority of supporters scapegoated him, despite the vast majority of the squad also having a poor season and him not being the sole reason for that, it is hard to see him, along with several underperforming players, staying with the Irons beyond this summer.

Odysseas Vlachodimos - Nottingham Forest to Newcastle United for €23.6 million

One of the stranger transfers on this list, Odysseas Vlachodimos left Nottingham Forest, where he had only made five Premier League appearances during the 2023/24 season, to Newcastle United for €23.6 million. The transfer fee is the fourth most expensive for a Greek player at the time of writing, and he is the most expensive goalkeeper that the Magpies have ever signed. 

It is also worth noting that this transfer coincided with the sale of English midfielder Elliot Anderson, who went the other way to Nottingham Forest, which may have been part of a strategy for both clubs to comply with Premier League Profit and Sustainability Regulations.

Sadly for Vlachodimos, the transfer has not worked out. The 31-year-old only made one appearance in all competitions in a League Cup fixture, where he played 45 minutes and kept a clean sheet. A combination of a lack of game time and the excellent form of both Konstantinos Tzolakis and Christos Mandas for Olympiakos and Lazio respectively, has led to Vlachodimos also losing his place as a starting goalkeeper for Greece. 

With Newcastle on the verge of signing Burnley's shot stopper James Trafford, and with both Nick Pope and Martin Dúbravka still at the club, it is more than likely that Vlachodimos will be moved on this summer.

Stefanos Tzimas - FC Nurnburg to Brighton & Hove Albion for €26.5 million

On to the top three, and we start with a player already on this list, so this will be brief. After lighting up the 2. Bundesliga and being signed permanently from PAOK by FC Nurnberg, Stefanos Tzimas was sold to Brighton and Hove Albion for €26.5 million in January 2025.

The talented Greek striker was loaned back to Nurnberg for the rest of the season, and, with the 24/25 season now over, he will join his parent club from the south coast of England and compete in the Premier League next season.

Kostas Manolas - Roma to Napoli for €36 million

A record now beaten, depending on which reports you read of the fee paid for Babis Kostoulas. Kostas Manolas made the interleague move from Roma to Napoli for €36 million in the summer of 2019, which, until recently, was the biggest fee ever paid for a Greek player. 

It is still currently the second most expensive sale in the history of Roma and the fourth most expensive signing in the history of Napoli, and at the time, Manolas justified the fee. 

Touted as one of the best defenders in Serie A and in Europe, with giants of the game, including Barcelona, previously linked with the centre back, the Naxos native had a good start in Naples, helping them win the Coppa Italia in his first season. 

However, persistent injuries began to affect his playing time over the next few seasons, and perhaps Napoli fans never saw the player, who made Roma’s team of the decade in 2020, at his very best.

Eventually, Napoli sold Manolas to one of his former clubs, Olympiakos, for just €2.5 million in January 2022.

Charalampos Kostoulas - Olympiakos to Brighton & Hove Albion for €37 million

The whole reason why I wrote this blog, Charalampos Kostoulas made the very recent move from his boyhood club, Olympiakos, to Brighton and Hove Albion for €35 million plus €2 million in add-ons, as reported by The Athletic. Sport24.gr even reported that, with goal performance bonuses, the fee could rise even higher to €40 million.

The transfer is officially the biggest fee ever paid for a Greek player, the biggest sale in the history of the current Greek champions and the Greek Super League.

A versatile forward who can play anywhere in the attacking line, Kostoulas had been one of the highest-rated youngsters in the Olympiakos academy for some time. After getting senior minutes with the B team in Super League 2, the now 18-year-old and youth teammate Christos Mouzakitis caught the eye of Thrylos manager Jose Luis Mendilibar, after both starred in the U19s winning the UEFA Youth League in 2024. 

The Basque coach not only made both players part of the squad for the 2024/25 campaign, but they also became integral to the Piraeus side reclaiming the Greek domestic double in the club's 100th anniversary season. The young forward scored vital goals in the derbies against PAOK, came on as a super-sub to score twice in a comeback win 2-1 against Aris. 

Fast, physical, a strong mentality and an eye for goal, these are the qualities Brighton fans can expect when they get the chance to see Kostoulas up close. 

While it is a very large fee for someone so young, and with admittedly not a lot of senior football experience before last season, Brighton and manager Fabian Hürzeler clearly believe in the potential of one of the biggest talents to come out of Greece in recent years.

@SteveKountourou

Hellas Football