![]() With players able to walk away from clubs at will, ‘transfers’ as we understand them would likely have disappeared altogether. The gloves would certainly have come off immediately in terms of a faster and greater concentration of power at the top, likely even greater than exists now. Professional football might have looked very different, had this happened. The global football transfer system might even have been at the point of being found in contravention of The Treaty of Rome. Part of the fallout of 1995’s Bosman ruling, which enshrined in law the right of players at the end of their contract to leave a club without a transfer fee, was that the entire transfer system had come under scrutiny from the European Commission, with an increasingly prevailing view becoming that no employee should be prevented from leaving an employer for another at any time. FIFA were introducing them across the world from the start of the 2002/03 season, whether they liked it or not. Fuelled by a decade’s worth of ever-increasing television money, commercial revenues, crowds and ticket prices, the Premier League was stuffed with apex predators, buying clubs who certainly didn’t want any further restrictions on when they could buy players. In the same year that this vote was taken, two Football League clubs – Aldershot and Maidstone United – went bust mid-season, the first to do so in 30 years. There’d finally been an upturn in crowds, supporter behaviour had improved a little, and the post-Hillsborough Taylor Report was bringing in a raft of stadium redevelopment across the country.īut this recovery was still fragile, and in taking the decision that they did, in thinking of themselves first as sellers, clubs were really passing comment on that fragility, even if they didn’t realise that they were doing so. By 1990, it finally felt as though there might be a break in the clouds after decades of dismal investment in facilities, increasing hooliganism and, consequently, steadily falling attendances had ended in an air of toxicity hanging over the game and, ultimately, death. ![]() It could be argued that the clue was in the new league’s logo. That it might make clubs think more strategically and plan better was also considered a potential benefit.Ī vote was defeated in 1992 on the basis that some clubs may need to ‘sell to survive’ at points throughout a season and that the existing system was a fair compromise, and by the time it was introduced in the global game ten years later Premier League clubs were against moving towards a more tightly regulated window, with Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein saying shortly after their introduction that “the English clubs did not want it, they were very happy with the existing system but, due to no fault of our own, we have had thrust upon us a new system which makes life more difficult”. Clubs were still operating under the same system as they ever had, but there was growing debate about regulating the transfer market in the hope of curbing the worst excesses of the rapidly growing network of agents that was starting to shoot up, as player salaries started to significantly rise. The current iteration of the transfer window in England can be traced back to 1992. Wealthy clubs being able to sign players whenever they wanted would upset the competitive balance of the league. The rationale for the transfer deadline was purely about maintaining the integrity of competitions. There was no internet in those days, and office hours clearly mattered to the Football League. ![]() Traditionally in England, clubs could not buy players after a transfer deadline day that was usually at the end of March, and almost always with a cut-off time of 5.00pm. Transfer windows have almost always existed. Across Europe the dates of various transfer windows are something of a mess that really could do with a tidy. They have been in France, too, but they haven’t yet in Germany, Italy or Spain. Except the transfer window has already been open since June 10 for domestic transfers in England. ![]() So, the 20th European summer transfer window opens on July 1. ![]() The transfer window may not be popular, but the alternative at the time of its introduction would have been the death of football’s economy. ![]()
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