The Premier League have today confirmed that all future summer transfer windows will close at 5pm on the Thursday before the new season kicks off.
The decision only affects the acquisition of players meaning sales to other competitions with windows still open can still take place.
STATEMENT: Here's the Premier League announcement on summer transfer windows. More on #SSN pic.twitter.com/FNV7QoZBkL
— Bryan Swanson (@skysports_bryan) September 7, 2017
It’s understood several top clubs pushed for the move after another hectic summer that saw star players unsettled by big money propositions from both domestic and continental rivals. Obviously, that won’t stop, but at least we’ll all know where we stand before the football actually gets going.
Arsene Wenger has been a long-term advocate of ending the window before the season starts. No doubt, he’ll be pleased the latest development. It remains to be seen whether his calls for the window to stay shut through the January trading period ever get implemented.
Common sense at last.
I disagree, this will only create more confusion. Forcing cash-rich premier league clubs to do their business early inflates the transfer kitty of European teams for the rest of the summer. Now for English clubs it will be difficult to sell late as they will have no opportunity to buy a replacement. For example: After a ridiculous late-August transfer that skews the market (Neymar). What happens when a player (Coutinho) gets his head turned at the 11th hour by one of the big teams? Let’s say he goes to Barca and despite receiving a huge fee, now the Premier League… Read more »
That could be a problem, but that just makes it incumbent upon the PL clubs to be straight with their players and agents from the start: No replacement in, you go nowhere. It will also force clubs in the other leagues to act earlier. They want money, and they want to move some players. England is a major market for both. So that’s the new normal. I think in the end the other leagues will mostly come around to the new arrangement and fall in line. I’m betting they all have their heads out just enough to understand their players… Read more »
Except nobody was forcing Liverpool to sell coutinho or arsenal to sell alexis so neither player moved. Mainly because they couldnt secure quality replacements. So zero impact in that scenario. Continental clubs will be aware of the premier league deadline and know they have to move for targets well in advance of it or they’ll fail to get the deals done.
Can you give an example of ‘any other field of business’ that is analogous to the football transfer market? Ideally outside of sport, but even then…
I’m pretty confident that the major European leagues will soon follow suit and change their transfer windows. The current system suits nobody
It could backfire. Just imagine if that was the case this season. Mr. Bean would have gone into the first game, gushing over the squad and thinking wow we will win the Champs’ League this season, even though we aren’t in it, and then had that disastrous start. Then you would not have had the chance to fix things. Those 3 games provide a good chance to see how the squad is shaping up and then fix things if required. That Mr. Bean chose not to make use of the opportunity to fix things even after a disastrous start to… Read more »
Exactly right. I can’t understand all manager’s seeming blind faith to this proposal. Three competitive fixtures are necessary to assess the state of your squad before 5 months of football. Allowing time to make adjustments and purchases like all other clubs on the planet will still be allowed to do. Very strange.
Because the whole previous season and summer friendlies weren’t enough?
I mean, I understand you dislike Wenger but calling him Mr. Bean is ridiculously silly. Especially when he doesnt even know we exist.
Great, so when we sell our star players to Spain or Italy after the deadline we have an excuse for not replacing them!
Ha. Yes. No more suffering the humiliation of the sheer panic when our fake £92m bid gets accepted.
Great !! Make total sense
“Jim White was unavailable for comment”
Great news for us but could make for a difficult summer with players often unwilling to move before the World Cup
Will be interesting to see how this affects other leagues. E.g. Would Real Madrid have still signed Bale/James if they couldn’t sell Ozil/Di Maria to us/Man U late in the window?
Exactly. I think they’ll fall in with the new schedule. If they hold those players and sell later, they’d probably have to accept less for them or miss out on a sale.
Watch Sky take the opportunity to have two deadline day (buying and selling) features next Summer…
Another great satirical photo to lessen the daily sting of being an Arsenal fan. I’m sad, but I’m smiling. What the Fuck?
Open it, close it who cares? Season after season we make early promising purchase to whet the fans’ appetite, get everyone scrambling for season ticket renewals then promptly close shop while repeating the “searching and alert” mantra.
I would prefer the window closes before season ticket renewals instead
There is a huge waiting list for season tickets so your comment is irrelevant.
Does it matter to us? Transfer window for us is the same feeling you get being the kid in detention who gets to watch all the other kids play outside through the classroom window.
….. in the snow
What a lot of shit!
so Arsenal cannot buy players from the Thursday prior to the new season – but Barca, Real, PSG and any other foreign club can come alone and pinch our players, and we would have no way to replace them
How is this in anyway beneficial to our league. Players heads will still get turned, and the club will be even more hurt if they engineer a move.
this is a joke, it should be a stop on both acquisition and sale of players…
Don’t know why I got down voted –
think about it.. Example: English club A has a good 1st choice goalkeeper with a buyout clause
Foreign club B loses there goalie to injury in the 2 weeks their transfer window is open and ours is not. They trigger Club A’s player buyout clause.. boom. club A is screwed
How is this in anyway going to benefit the EPL/EFL.
Just another complete bollox up by the FA (Fucking Atrocious)…
Higher buyout clauses, no buyout clauses, Or the contract can be written so the buyout can only be activated within the league’s window.
Hell, I’d write it so the clause can only be activated prior to 1 week or more before the buying window closing. If the player wants a buyout clause, that’s how it’s to be.
attractive gal.
kinda big boobs though
Good decision.
Would rather they shut it at 00.00 though…
At least then I can go to sleep frustrated rather than having 5-7hrs of kicking doors and smashing windows.
Supporting Arsenal really tests my patience.
I thought they were going to push the start date of epl to 1 sept
If we’re gonna do any good business, we don’t need the window to end before the start of the season, we need it to end before the end of the window.
That’s gonna be a little trickier to pull off.
Can’t wait to see what Arsene will blame next for our transfer failings
How will AFC ever get any business done in such a short window???
Buy early as he did this summer
could be even crazier than usual. Arsene will be doing his commentary pundit moonlighting during the World Cup. Doesn’t leave him with much time afterwards for anything other than a mad trolley dash. Players might not wish to commit until after the World Cup is over as well.
Of course, it was during his commentary pundit moonlighting during the last World Cup that he signed Alexis.
But this only makes sense.
Only fools would disagree with Wenger on this one for the sake of whatever agenda they hold.
All deals can conclude very quickly. What we usually see as a ‘trolley dash’ is really because certain parties be they players/agents or clubs prefer to drag out proceedings to leverage other moves elsewhere to sweat out on prices.
If the time span is compressed, the shennannigans won’t dissapear, they will just have to play out within the shorter duration.
Which is not a problem.
And this will then not impact the start of the league.
Sensible move.
Good news I think, might make Wenger and co plan a bit better next time…..actually who am I kidding
Gives SSN another day to go mental and “understand” that player X is on his way to club Y.
The deadline day lady must be crying tears of joy.