Leeds United most expensive signings: Top 10 revealed before crucial summer spending

Back in the Premier League for the 2025-26 season, Leeds United will need to have some big signings up their sleeves this summer.

It’s getting increasingly tough for newly promoted sides to stay up, so Leeds will need to invest to give themselves the best chance of avoiding relegation. Thus, we can expect to see some new entries to their top 10 most expensive signings of all time.

As things stand, here are the 10 biggest Leeds signings in their history.

10. Raphinha – £17m

If anyone offered £17m for Raphinha these days, it wouldn’t get them very far. The Brazil winger is one of the leading contenders for the 2025 Ballon d’Or thanks to his form for Barcelona.

To cap off their squad building for their Premier League return in 2020, Leeds brought him to the Premier League from Rennes on deadline day that October. It was an inspired move.

Raphinha lit up Elland Road over his two-season stay, scoring 17 goals from 67 games. He credited the legendary Marcelo Bielsa with making him good enough for the level he would go on to play at.

Indeed, when Leeds sold Raphinha to Barcelona in 2022, it was for a major profit. The agreed fee was £50m, rising to £55m.

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=8. Rio Ferdinand – £18m

There once was a time when Leeds were breaking the British transfer record. In fact, their £18m acquisition of Rio Ferdinand is the only deal from before relegation in 2004 that remains among their 10 most expensive bits of business.

Ferdinand arrived from West Ham United in 2000, playing a part in Leeds’ famous run to the Champions League semi-finals in his debut season.

For his second season in West Yorkshire, the world’s most expensive defender (at the time) became the club captain, succeeding Lucas Radebe.

However, he left in 2002, pushing through a move to Manchester United. Despite the rivalry between the clubs, which he later admitted he didn’t understand the significance of, Leeds were in desperate need of funds and they banked up to £33.3m for the future six-time Premier League winner.

=8. Diego Llorente – £18m

Despite boasting the best defensive record in the 2019-20 Championship, Leeds introduced two new centre-backs from foreign top-flight clubs ahead of their Premier League return.

After Robin Koch’s August arrival from Freiburg, Leeds added Llorente from Real Sociedad in September.

The Spaniard’s start to life at Leeds was affected by injuries, and even when he was fit, his form was inconsistent.

Llorente earned himself a high-profile escape six months before Leeds’ relegation, though, joining Roma on what would later be extended to an 18-month loan.

In contrast to his Leeds highs and lows, he was a reliable, consistent performer in Italy. Still, the Whites made a loss when selling him to Real Betis, for just £2.5m.

7. Jean-Kevin Augustin – £18.4m

This is where things get a bit awkward. Leeds signed Augustin on loan from RB Leipzig for their final charge towards promotion in January 2020.

However, the striker only spent 48 minutes on the pitch across three appearances. But despite his brief involvement on the pitch, Augustin’s name would linger over Leeds for a few years.

Leeds had an option to buy Augustin, which they neglected. However, Leipzig argued that it was an obligation if Leeds were promoted – which they were.

Leeds counter-argued that their promotion was confirmed after Augustin’s loan had ended, due to the delayed conclusion of the season. But ultimately, in November 2022, the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed Leeds had to pay Leipzig £18.4m for a player who by that point had long since played his last game for the club.

After Leeds Utd withdrew their £24.5m compensation claim for Jean-Kevin Augustin, he became the most expensive player in football history in regards to cost per appearance.

He cost Leeds £13,715 per second played. (Via Kieran Maguire) #LUFC pic.twitter.com/sDNjigfKKr

— TEAMtalk (@TEAMtalk) April 12, 2024

6. Tyler Adams – £20m

Jesse Marsch was delighted to reunite with his American compatriot Adams when Leeds raided RB Leipzig in July 2022.

Leeds had just banked £42m from the sale of academy graduate Kalvin Phillips to Manchester City, and – having already bought fellow midfielder Marc Roca from Bayern Munich for £10m prior to Phillips’ exit – they didn’t even need to use half of those funds to replace him with Adams.

However, the USMNT star only spent one season at Elland Road, which he missed the last few months of due to injury.

After Leeds’ relegation, Adams left for Premier League outfit Bournemouth, who signed him for a similar price to what Leeds had paid a year earlier.

5. Luis Sinisterra – £21m

Adams was soon followed to Bournemouth by Sinisterra, who had also only spent a year at Leeds.

The winger arrived from Feyenoord in 2022 on the back of a 23-goal season, but only played in half of the Premier League games that led to Leeds’ relegation.

Sinisterra’s arrival was designed to account for the upcoming loss of Raphinha, but he didn’t hit the same heights and only fulfilled one year of his five-year contract.

Unlike Adams, Sinisterra started the new season with Leeds, playing twice in the Championship, before leaving in a loan move that would ultimately become permanent.

Bournemouth paid £20m for the Colombia international, giving Leeds a negligible loss but a capital gain.

4. Brenden Aaronson – £24.7m

Another American brought to Leeds by Marsch, Aaronson was actually a target for his predecessor Bielsa as well, but eventually arrived in the summer of 2022.

After 18 months with Red Bull Salzburg, Aaronson earned a £24.7m move into the Premier League, reuniting with the coach who’d welcomed him to Austria.

Aaronson didn’t have the physicality to succeed in the Premier League, though, only scoring once in Leeds’ relegation season from 36 league games.

He escaped on loan for Union Berlin in 2023-24, before returning to help Leeds gain promotion from the Championship with the best goalscoring season of his career.

Despite the price they paid for him, there are still doubts about whether Aaronson will be able to cut it in the top flight or if Leeds will need to spend big again on a new no.10.

3. Daniel James – £25m

Leeds were about to nab James for £10m from Swansea City in January 2019, when he completed a medical and was conducting interviews with club media, before the sellers pulled the plug on the deal.

“It was all a bit crazy and then it wasn’t done,” he later acknowledged. “I threw my phone. I thought it’s not real. The chief exec of Leeds wasn’t happy at the time, but then it was just a case of driving home. It was a very weird situation and I think it helped me in some ways.”

That summer, Swansea sold James for £15m to Manchester United, where he spent two years. With 50 Premier League appearances under his belt, he commanded a higher fee when Leeds – by this point also a top-flight outfit – went in for him again.

Finally, James became a Leeds player in August 2021, costing £25m. He was loaned out to Fulham after a year, and by the time he returned to Leeds, they were a Championship club again.

However, now with more than 100 appearances for the club to his name, the Wales winger has played a key part in getting Leeds back into the big time, scoring double figures of goals in each of his two seasons back in the second tier.

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2. Rodrigo Moreno – £26m

To celebrate their return to the Premier League in 2020, Leeds broke their transfer record to sign Rodrigo from Valencia at a cost of £26m. At the time, it was their first investment of £20m or more.

Rodrigo also became Leeds’ highest-paid player on a deal worth £100,000 per week.

Returning to the Premier League after his previous spell with Bolton Wanderers almost a decade before, Rodrigo played either as an attacking midfielder or a striker during his debut season at Elland Road.

He was with the club for the duration of their three-year stay in the Premier League, scoring 28 goals from 97 games in all competitions. His best tally from a single season was 15, in his last.

Following Leeds’ relegation, Rodrigo was sold to Al-Rayyan in the Qatar Stars League. There was a release clause in his contract, which had one year left to run.

Leeds were powerless as they made a substantial loss on the Spain international, whose exit earned them just £3m but did help reduce the wage bill.

1. Georginio Rutter – £35.5m

Some eyebrows were raised when relegation-threatened Leeds broke their transfer record to sign Rutter in January 2023. He had only scored twice that season for Hoffenheim and would fail to score for the rest of the season in his new surroundings.

Considering Leeds paid £35.5m for the Frenchman, the recruitment was one of many factors in the spotlight amid their relegation. Would the money have been better spent on a more proven goalscorer than the then-20-year-old?

However, Rutter found his form in the Championship. Put in a more effective role by Daniel Farke, he provided more assists than anyone in the league, apart from former Leeds player Leif Davis at Ipswich Town.

Thus, Rutter’s next move also saw him become a club’s record signing, as Brighton paid his £40m release clause to lift him back up to the Premier League in the summer of 2024.

Rutter would have been under contract with Leeds until 2028, but after establishing himself in the Premier League this time around, he’ll be an opponent next season.