Premier League clubs’ decision to enact a rule change that shuts the transfer window before the season starts is being shown to be penny-wise and pound-foolish in its very first summer.
The motivation behind the decision is understandable. Once they lose a player late in the window, clubs are often left scrambling with little time to find a replacement.
Either they don’t find one at all, or they’re faced with an inflated market, with everyone fully aware that they are flush with funds and desperate to find a player before the window shuts.
Not to mention, players have begun sitting out games at the beginning of a season in a bid to force through a transfer. They’re afflicted by mysterious ailments that disappear as soon as the transfer goes through or the window closes, or team management itself decides that a player is not in the right frame of mind to play. Alexis Sanchez, Philippe Coutinho and Diego Costa were high-profile examples last season.
But clubs have shot themselves in the foot with this rule change, and they’re seeing it now, when the new policy coupled with the World Cup has led to a truncated transfer window.
Players wanting to concentrate on the World Cup rather than transfers during the early part of the summer has meant that, unofficially, the window will be open for less than a month, with the World Cup final on July 15 and the window closing on August 9.
The shorter duration has led to exactly the same situation as that which clubs face during an end-of-window scramble: selling clubs are jacking up their prices, knowing that a deadline is fast approaching and thus buyers may be desperate to seal a transfer.
Faced with the inflated values, some clubs are being forced to deal with the reality that a target may be unattainable, at least in the short-term.
But the true fallacy of the rule change is the go-it-alone nature of the Premier League’s decision. The old transfer window remains in place for every other league.
Thus, English clubs have closed the market off to themselves for more than three weeks while everyone else can still do business – including buying their players.
Jose Mourinho and Manchester United have endured a frustrating transfer window.
And because that is the case, one of the concerns clubs had – that they can be raided late in the window with no time to find a replacement – hasn’t been addressed.
The rule change simply means it won’t be Premier League clubs doing the raiding. Plus, there’s still nothing to stop players from sitting out games in a bid to make a move happen, knowing that a club from outside England could still come in for them.
Manchester United and Manchester City must be cursing their fellow clubs right now. They, along with Watford, Crystal Palace, and Swansea had voted against this rule change last September, but 14 others were in favour (Burnley abstained), giving the policy the two-thirds majority it needed to be enacted.
Some clubs have still thrived. Newly-promoted Fulham and Wolves have done some excellent business, and further up the table Liverpool and Arsenal have had good windows as well, while that duo will also be less constrained by players going deep at the World Cup.
On the other hand, last season’s top three have been relatively quiet. City did break their transfer record for Riyad Mahrez, and missing out on their midfield targets has little to do with a shortened window, but they are undoubtedly aware of the premium they will have to pay if they dip into the market now, and have deemed it unnecessary.
United, meanwhile, are being stymied in their efforts to strengthen their squad. Sir Alex Ferguson’s infamous mutterings that would pop up every few summers, that there was no value in the market in that particular window, are being remembered now as they deal with proposed transfer fees that are being inflated by the fact the club must conclude any incoming transfers within a fortnight. Tottenham are facing a similar issue.
It’s a problem that at the moment has hit Jose Mourinho’s title challengers the most. But with the Premier League rule change, it’s one that can crop up any summer for any club – and they’ll only have themselves to blame.
