I can’t understand why a big stink hasn't been made about the introduction of transfer windows. After the end of August, Premier League clubs will not be allowed to sign any players until January. Isn’t this an extraordinary step? Why aren’t people talking about this?
Yet in the past months it’s proved astonishingly hard to obtain concrete information on this. The facts have been elusive, and to some extent continue to be so. Searches of the web turned up nothing. And how many articles on fan sites did you read about this? Perhaps people don’t think it’s an issue, but am I the only one who feels ill-informed? Are we walking into this with our eyes closed?
As far as I'm aware, this season a new system is supposed to be coming into effect across UEFA. Clubs will only be able to sign players from the end of the football season to the end of August, and then after that only in January. This will definitely apply in the Premier League - although there's been some question of whether this will apply to all transfers or only international ones - but it would appear that the Football League intends not to enforce this. Here it gets less clear cut. Whether they will be allowed to do so at the moment is still unknown, and UEFA has recently stated that a decision will not be made until after the deadline has passed! Clearly, incompetence in the bodies that run football isn't confined to these shores alone. At a time when the Football League is in a mess, it really would help clubs to know whether or not they will be able to sign and sell players this season. UEFA seems to be doing its best to kick our wounded game while it's down.
It would seem likely at the moment that Football League clubs will be left free to trade with each other for a grace period of a season or two, before falling into line. That’s as far as I can ascertain, anyway. Don’t bother looking to official sources of information such as the Football Association or Football League websites for confirmation of this, naturally.
So perhaps this shouldn’t worry us. Perhaps it’s only a Premier League issue? (The Premier League states that it has been forced to go along with this even while maintaining that it’s a bad idea!) But, if a transfer window applies domestically, doesn’t this rule out any prospect of a Football League club doing business with the Premier League for most of the season? We might be able to transfer from each other, but in these times when we are poor and they are rich, haven’t we got less chance of the money trickling down than ever?
I do wonder where, precisely, the demand is coming from for this. The pressure has come from the European Union, whose officials doubtless understand well how to run our sport. UEFA seems happy enough to tinker in response to this, which shouldn't surprise us. But who here thinks it is a good idea? Why are we just being expected to go along with the imposition of something which does not accord with our football culture?
It matters not that transfer windows are applied successfully in a number of other European countries. They have winter breaks and feeder clubs too, but that doesn’t mean they would be right here.
My argument is no less than the oldest one in the book: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. What great ill have we identified with our current system where transfers are possible throughout the season? Sure, they enable teams with resources to add to their squads at crucial moments – but fortunately they also enable managers to make expensive mistakes, which is all part of the fun of the game. Classic examples might be Man City buying Rodney Marsh or Newcastle signing Faustino Asprilla, convinced as they did so that they were acquiring the final, clinching piece in their jigsaw, when instead they got a misfit that made the whole less than the sum of the parts. Of course, there’s many an example of a well-timed signing that makes the difference between success and failure. As an outstanding example, how about our very own addition of Ian Wright a couple of years back, that catalysed a faltering promotion challenge?
One important attribute of any manager is, of course, an ability to work with and coach, the players he has at his disposal. Just about everyone has some limit on his spending power, and so to some extent managers have always had to rely on their ability to improve the players they have, organise them well and pick suitable tactics. All well and good, and if transfers are restricted, we may see that side of things flourish. But another key skill of any football manager is that of signing – and letting go – the right player for the right price at the right time. Why tie one hand behind a manager's back? Wheeling and dealing is an integral part of our game.
Mid-season transfers also, less frivolously, allow clubs to offload players. A sale at a crucial time can make all the difference. Now more than ever, with clubs crippled after Carlton and Granada walked away from their responsibilities, clubs need all the potential lifelines they can get. Many clubs have survived on the basis of selling a player when they need the money. Clubs have sold to keep going. Why take this away from them?
Allegedly the reason for this change is to bring some contractual stability and reduce volatility in the game. But here, now, in the Football League, we need clubs to have maximum flexibility in trading players. If our clubs are to survive, they need to be able to run small squads, pick up players on short term deals as the need arises and dispose of an asset when bills need to be paid. Any restriction on the movement of players now is badly ill-timed.
The clubs who will benefit from this will be those who are already at the top anyway. Look at the Premier League. Who will cope best with this? Naturally the big clubs – Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U – can afford to run big squads and cover every position. Clubs going up, like Birmingham and West Brom, aren’t going to be able to take a chance on the players they have and then wheel and deal over the course of the season. Bolton did this to good effect last season. Instead, they’ll be expected to splash out big early on and for a month only when it matters - with all the risks that entails. Every year, the gap gets bigger and bigger.
This season Premier League clubs have already been signing extra players - such as goalkeepers - because they have pre-season injuries and can't risk running out of cover before January. So squad sizes rise and the wage bill goes up. All very sensible.
Don’t expect a transfer ban to bring prices down. Sure, clubs will be prevented from lashing out on the odd unsuitable player that they might have regretted buying later. But imagine the frenzy when the window opens in January and you must buy now or never. Or imagine as August nears its end and after a couple of matches some side needs that something extra. With the window closing, expect stand-offs and who-blinks-first gamesmanship. You might be able to pick up a bargain as a club gets desperate to off-load, but you might lay out big time when the countdown starts. Ultimately, if you have something you can buy for a minority of the time instead of a majority, I can’t see it’s going to encourage sensible signings at reasonable prices. It doesn’t seem to do this elsewhere - see Italy and Spain, those bastions of reasonable transfer dealing.
Perhaps the only good thing in all this is that the inane transfer speculation which infests the internet will dry up. There are whole sites which run on nothing else. The fact that feeble rumour mongers may fall quiet for a while is something to be grateful for. The tabloid press will be worried too, which has to be good. Of course, as football supporters it will leave us a bit less to talk about. It’s a useful conversation-filler on those long journeys at least.
I suspect the people who cherish this in their hearts are the crushingly dull bureaucrats who run football at international level. These people are standardisers. They want standardisation for the sake of it. They’re the sort of people who, deep down, would be happier if we all drunk litres and towns were kilometres apart. It might make things tidier, but would it really make the world a better place? Is this really what our game needs right now?
