The end of August has typically been the end to the summer Premier League transfer window. Just like Boxing Day and an overcrowded holiday season, the transfer window ending when the calendar goes from August to September has been traditional in English soccer. But that might be a thing of the past come next year.
It’s reported that Premier League teams will vote on moving the transfer deadline to before the season starts. The argument that supports this idea is that by having the transfer window shut before the actual start of the season, teams can forget about transfer drama and fans as well as the media can talk and pay attention to what’s happening on the pitch rather than the latest transfer gossip. For this to be passed, a 2/3 majority vote is needed for it to pass but apparently most teams are already in favor and consider the vote to be a formality.
On the surface, this seems like a great idea. Players who may be in fear of someone new coming in and taking their spot won’t have to worry until at least the winter window in January. Teams with managers who also handle transfer negotiations might be in danger of sacrificing time devoted to winning on the pitch and in favor of getting that next signing. And there wouldn’t be a danger of transfer news and drama (Swansea/Everton over Gylfi Sigurdsson or Southampton/Liverpool over Virgil van Dijk) overshadowing the first few weeks of the Premier League.
But this isn’t exactly as beneficial as it’s made out to be. Shutting the Premier League window up to three weeks earlier than usual would mean the Premier League is shutting their window three weeks before the rest of the top European leagues. This means that when the England transfer window shuts, English cannot buy players to come to their team but can still sell players elsewhere.
Look at the Philippe Coutinho situation. Coutinho was fine staying at Liverpool until Barcelona put in a big offer after they sold Neymar to PSG. Once Barcelona became interested in Coutinho, it eventually convinced Coutinho to want to go to Barcelona so much that he put in a transfer request and isn’t playing for Liverpool anymore. Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool can say that they won’t sell Coutinho for any price but once a player puts in the transfer request, it’s kind of tough to put that genie back in the bottle. Liverpool may have wanted to keep Coutinho for another year or so but all indications point that it’ll likely become inevitable that he will be a Barcelona player sometime this month.
If Liverpool sells Coutinho to Barcelona, that leaves them with somewhere close to £100 million and a few weeks to get a replacement. If the transfer window closes at the end of the season, that could put English teams at a major disadvantage in comparison to other top European teams because Liverpool would have to go over four months without being able to use that infusion of funds to replace their star midfielder.
This could easily be exploited among the Champions League teams. Imagine if Real Madrid were to be interested in Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne and offered £100 million for him. At the same time, imagine if those two teams are drawn in the same group in the UEFA Champions League. If Real knows that England’s transfer window shuts three weeks before Spain’s, Real could just wait until after the English window shuts, put in an offer, put up a big stink so much that De Bruyne eventually puts in a transfer request and Manchester City has an unhappy player who won’t play and likely have no choice but to sell him and cannot replace him. All the while, you’re facing Real Madrid twice in between the time it takes before you can get your De Bruyne replacement.
This may not happen often but in the realm of world soccer and each team is trying to get an advantage over the other, why wouldn’t Real try and do this and disrupt their biggest competition in the Champions League group stage? Ending the transfer window before the season starts may be a great idea and I even feel that despite the reasons not to, it’s something that would benefit the Premier League. I’m just hoping that the Premier League teams realize the pros and cons before voting on this.
