20-year-old Hungarian international Alex Tóth has been signed by the English Premier League club AFC Bournemouth. The young midfielder came through the Ferencváros youth academy, and made his senior debut for the Budapest green-and-whites in 2023.
Overall, he played just 38 games and scored three goals in the Hungarian top division for Ferencváros before making a transfer to the most competitive league in the world. Bournemouth has paid a reported €12 million for the signing, with a potential €3 million bonus payment to his former club if certain performance criteria are met.
With that, he doubled the record for the most expensive transfer in the Hungarian league’s history. It was previously held by Krisztián Lisztes, another young Hungarian midfielder from Fradi, for whom the German Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt paid €6 million in 2024. However, we can only hope that Tóth’s career pans out a lot better than Lisztes’s: the latter youngster has not made a single senior appearance for Frankfurt, is now back with Ferencváros on loan, struggling for playing minutes.
Tóth is not the first Hungarian player to play for Bournemouth. In 2023, the Cherries signed left-back Milos Kerkez from the Dutch club AZ Alkmaar for €20.47 million. That turned out to be quite a success story—in just two years, Kerkez was bought by defending Premier League champions Liverpool for more than double his original transfer fee, €46.90 million. He is now playing for the Reds alongside Hungarian national team captain Dominik Szoboszlai.
Fresh talent Tóth has also made it to the national team already, first appearing in 2025. He has 9 caps and no goals for Hungary thus far. He will be wearing the #27 jersey in his new club.
If he makes his league debut, Alex Tóth will be the 13th Hungarian player to play in the Premier League, after István Kozma, Zoltán Gera, Gábor Király, Sándor Torghelle, Tamás Priskin, Ákos Buzsáky, Péter Halmosi, the late Márton Fülöp, Péter Kurucz, Ádám Bogdán, as well as the aforementioned Szoboszlai and Kerkez.
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