Emi Buendia’s expected club-record sale to Aston Villa will comfortably make the Argentine star Norwich City’s biggest transfer.

The Canaries’ reigning Player of the Season will officially leave for an undisclosed fee, understood to be for an initial £33million with another £5m to potentially follow in performance-related fees and a 10 per cent sell-on fee which could one day take the total package above £40m.

Back in 1994 it was City receiving a British record fee of £5million for Chris Sutton from Blackburn but transfers fees have continued to rise over the years.

The record fee paid by a British club is now an eye-watering £89million, when Manchester United’s re-signed Paul Pogba from Juventus in 2016, for example.

That inflation has led to eight-figure fees becoming the norm for Premier League teams, with City selling Ben Godfrey and James Maddison for in excess of £20m in recent years.

Exact fees are rarely revealed and performance-related fees and sell-on clauses can muddy the waters but with media sources close to clubs at either end, invariably a fee close to the real deal ends up becoming public.

Sporting director Stuart Webber said it would take club-record fees to persuade him to sell City’s star assets this summer, while acknowledging that sales could be needed to acquire the investment potential required for a squad that can survive in the top flight.

Buendia is set to eclipse the deal agreed with Everton for Godfrey last October. That was understood to be for an initial £25m, potentially rising to £30m. The defender has just earned his first England cap and it’s thought a competitive international appearance would earn Norwich a six-figure fee.

That surpassed the initial £21m that Leicester forked out for Maddison in 2018, which could rise to £24m with similar add-on fees and a sell-on clause.

NCFC record sales (reported fees)

Emi Buendia - £33m (potentially rising to £38m) - Aston Villa?

Ben Godfrey - £25m (potentially rising to £30m) - Everton

James Maddison - £21m (potentially rising to £24m) - Leicester

Jamal Lewis - £15m (potentially rising to £17m) - Newcastle

Robbie Brady - £13m - Burnley

Alex Pritchard - £12m - Huddersfield

Nathan Redmond - £11m - Southampton

Josh Murphy - £11m - Cardiff

Jacob Murphy - £10m (potentially rising to £12.5m) - Newcastle

Leroy Fer - £8m - QPR