The esports scene, despite experiencing rapid growth, still has many hurdles on its way. It’s still nowhere near the lucrativeness of conventional sports like soccer and basketball. And we’re not just talking about prize pool lucrativeness, but player salaries and transfer fees too.

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Just a handful of popular esports titles had significant transfer fees and buyouts. We’re referring to CSGO, Dota 2, and League of Legends. But, the first FIFA esports transfer could happen too. Let’s talk about that!

That’s right – Hashtag United has received a 100,000 GBP offer for their start FIFA player Tom Leese. This could mark the first FIFA esports transfer ever! The 22-year-old is considered one of the best FIFA players out there, and his popularity could be vital for attracting sponsors.

Leese spends roughly 10 hours a day playing FIFA, and he’s been among the world’s best for quite some time now. It’s nothing surprising, considering he’s a well-known esports athlete. Top players like him typically earn around 10,000 GBP per month, but should the deal come through. The 22-year-old ought to cash in on signing bonuses as well.

We have stellar examples of reasonable transfer fees in other esports. We’re talking about two globally popular players, both of which come from a small European region called the Balkans. 

First up, Luka “Perkz” Perković. The 22-year-old Croat, one of the best League of Legends pros out there, signed for Cloud9 in 2020 for a reported transfer fee of $5 million. G2 got themselves a great deal here – $5 million still stands as the record in esports transfer fees.

G2 invested in their CSGO team by acquiring Nikola “NiKo” Kovač from Faze Clan at roughly the same time. And while we don’t know the exact buyout price tag, speculations suggest it was somewhere between $2 and $2.5 million.