How much did PSG pay for Neymar?

How to get close to this number

Anchor on the previous record and note that this one more than doubled it. Transfer records had been rising steadily in increments; a single move at over twice the prior peak is what happens when a buyer pays a release clause rather than negotiating with the selling club.

That clause mechanism is the whole explanation. A release clause is a fixed price the selling club must accept, set high enough that nobody was ever expected to pay it — and when a buyer simply did, the club had no ability to refuse or to negotiate upward. The record was set by a contract term rather than by a market.

The durability is the consequence: seven years later it is still the record, and it reset the price of every elite player in the game. A single transaction far above the market becomes the new reference point for every subsequent negotiation, which is why one clause payment inflated an entire sector's pricing permanently.