Newcastle United could have astonishingly paid £265.2m for club-record signing

Newcastle United would have needed to stump up a staggering £265.2million to sign Alan Shearer in today's money.

Millions across the country are feeling the pinch of rising costs. Everything from energy bills to food shopping has skyrocketed following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rewind to the mid-90s and anyone old enough to remember those halcyon days will reminisce in fondness. For Newcastle fans, they were still coming to terms with being pipped to the Premier League title by Manchester United.

Kevin Keegan’s “Entertainers” blew a 12-point lead in one of English football’s most iconic campaigns - a wound that still stings to this day. Just months later, Euro 96 fever engulfed the nation.

Football came home for the first time in 30 years but that, too, ended in heartbreak. The Three Lions hosted the tournament but were cruelly dumped out by Germany on penalties in the semi-finals.

St James’ Park held three fixtures, with the great France side featuring the likes of Zinedine Zidane kick-starting their campaign on Tyneside. While England failed to end their trophy drought, Shearer propelled himself to global superstardom, with his five strikes earning him the Golden Boot.

He had clinched Premier League glory with Blackburn Rovers a year earlier and now was time for him to showcase his talents on the biggest stage. Shearer’s impressive form ignited a transfer tug-of-war as Real Madrid, Man United and Newcastle approached the striker.

Ultimately, the former Blackburn man decided to return home and don the No.9 shirt - for a cool £15million. Sir John Hall headhunted Shearer as the man to lead an ambitious new era at Newcastle - sending a warning to the rest of the Premier League.

The silverware never came but Shearer would go down as a club icon - bagging 206 times to cement his status as the club’s greatest goalscorer. Fresh calculations by football financial expert Kieran Maguire list the world-record fee paid in 1996 would translate to £265.2million today.

For context, that figure shatters the £200million Paris Saint-Germain forked out to prise Neymar from Barcelona in 2017. A pint of lager, in case anyone was wondering, cost £1.70 - compared to £4.70 at present.