If someone looked back on the European summer transfer window of 2013 in the future, it would surely begin with a blockbuster transfer.
Atletico Madrid's biggest star, the Colombian center forward, Falcao the Tiger, transferred to Ligue 1 side Monaco!
After a Qatari consortium acquired Paris Saint-Germain and began waving its oil money around European football, Russian billionaire Rybolovlev followed close behind, acquiring traditional Ligue 1 powerhouse Monaco and beginning to invest huge sums that summer.
Falcao was Monaco's fourth signing of the season. This fully demonstrated Monaco's boldness and extravagance in the transfer market. Before Falcao, the Ligue 1 newcomers had first signed Kondogbia from Sevilla for twenty million euros, then brought in James Rodríguez and Moutinho from Porto. The former cost forty-five million euros, while the latter cost twenty-five million.
In other words, before signing Falcao, Monaco had already invested ninety million euros in hard cash in the transfer market.
To bring Falcao over from Atletico Madrid, Monaco then invested another sixty million euros, bringing their total summer spending to as much as one hundred and fifty million euros. They even offered Falcao an annual salary of fourteen million euros. This was another astonishing move.
That was not all. French media outlets revealed that Monaco was not satisfied with this alone. They had also set their sights on Cavani of Naples and Hulk of Zenit Saint Petersburg, both of whom commanded enormous transfer fees.
It was said that Zenit had offered Hulk the astronomical sum of sixty million euros. If the deal went through, it would be another astonishing transfer.
If Monaco was coming on fiercely, intent on challenging Ligue 1 overlord Paris Saint-Germain, then Paris Saint-Germain, which also had the backing of a major consortium, was not to be outdone.
After Monaco announced the signing of Falcao,