Many people have asked me whether the last day of the transfer window is as dramatic for those involved as Sky’s Jim White and Andy “three phones” Burton would have us believe. The answer is a definite yes.
Imagine. It’s Jan 24. The manager and chief executive officer meet to review how things have gone in the window so far and it couldn’t be worse. None of the targets have been signed. One has gone to a richer competitor who topped your best bid, another has been given a new deal to stay and the third could only be afforded if one of your out-of-favour players was moved on – which hasn’t happened because there are no takers. Oh, and to cap it all, out of the blue a bid has been made for your star striker who has just told the manager that he wants to go.
A week of 20-hour days lies ahead for the manager and CEO as they negotiate on multiple fronts in parallel without quite knowing where they will end up with their plans to retain, sell and buy. To reach midnight as the window closes with a happy manager and still on budget requires the most difficult of juggling acts.
No matter how much forward planning is done, how many considered hours of scouting your staff have completed and how diligently your manager does his homework before making a signing, no club can predict or control the multiple moving pieces that make up the January transfer market.
It is that headline-grabbing final day when deals seem to be completing every hour that most fascinates supporters and media.
Supporters naturally wish to know why so many deals happen at the last minute. How is it that deals can appear so difficult to conclude, dragging on through weeks of speculation, claim and counter claim, before finally being done seemingly within an hour as the deadline approaches?
It is certainly not by design.
The whole transfer process begins with the budget, specifically a club’s capital availability and wage bill. At the beginning of every season the CEO and team manager sit down to review the financial parameters within which they must work. The manager then decides which players he wants to move on and whom he would like to bring in.
They will assess the likely costs of targets, including those hidden agents’ fees (often overlooked when people read headline figures) alongside the potential proceeds from sales.
For most clubs in these straitened times these figures will need to balance, giving a net transfer spend of zero. Some clubs, usually those with a wealthy owner or generous bank manager, will be in a position to spend more than they generate.
The key point though is that the starting figures can only ever be estimates. The transfer market’s volatility means that it only needs one inflated deal to throw numerous clubs’ plans out of kilter. Clubs invariably find themselves in a chain, where the postponement of one proposed transfer impacts on others. Few clubs, except those under serious financial pressure, will ever sell without having a replacement already lined up so just like when you’re buying a house, if there is one break in the chain, everything stalls.
Another significant complicating factor is the leakiness of the market. Securing your main target, quickly, confidentially and at the estimated price without the selling club seeking to exploit your need to buy or competitors queering the pitch is unusual. Clubs will let it be known when they want players moved out, and agents will say whatever is necessary to protect their clients’ interests. The newspapers become the battleground for a phoney war when negotiation begins as sellers set their asking prices, buyers talk down their interest and players express their club loyalty while their agents set salary expectations. All of which goes some way to explaining why straightforward deals in the early part of the window are rare.
An important distinction needs to be made, however, between the January and summer transfer windows. January is a far less appealing time for clubs. It is pre-season when budgets are set and normally spent, so for January dealing to take place a club must have either changed their financial position (having been sold to new owners midseason, for example) or be the beneficiary of a large receipt for one of their most valuable players.
January is therefore narrower in terms of clubs who transact and shallower in terms of available talent. Many players are cup tied for certain competitions which reduces their usefulness and value. But occasionally a top-class talent is still playing at a non-Champions League participant and the super clubs soon circle. A club who have suffered major injuries or severe dips in form will also feel compelled to act, which is why the player loan has become so commonplace in January. It enables a manager to freshen up the squad without a capital outlay and enables the loaning club to reduce their wage bill and move out a player who is out of favour and to put him in the shop window for a summer sale. Often the loan becomes a full sale in summer via an option to buy at a pre-agreed figure – the football equivalent of buying on approval.
For any deal to be processed early in the window three key ingredients must be in place: a willing seller with one willing buyer at the asking price and a player happy to leave to the club in question inevitably for an improved salary. It only needs one of these elements to be absent for negotiations to become fraught and to drag on for weeks, or at least until the end of the window beckons.
It is the transfer of the want-away star player that causes most rancour and inevitably attracts most media interest.
Let’s give a generic example. A major player valued at around £30million, whose club insists he is not for sale, is suddenly linked very strongly in the media with a rival club by well-placed sources, suggesting a formal bid is imminent. It is a fair presumption that an independent agent, claiming to represent the interested club, has made an approach to the player’s representative and received some encouragement.
With interest in the player now made public and the player potentially unsettled, his club will immediately release a statement saying their player is not for sale. In some cases they genuinely mean it. We saw this with Spurs and Luca Modric earlier in the season when their position could not have been made more unequivocal.
On other occasions you have to read between the lines of such statements. Often they are little more than exercises in public relations as no club like to be seen as a selling club, particularly of popular star performers. Public statements can be an important part of the negotiating tactics. With the exception of Manchester City (as the highest salary payers in the league), there is no club in the Premier League which can claim with 100 per cent certainty that a player will never be sold, especially if the player really wants to leave.
What the 'no sale’ comment often means, therefore, is that if anyone wants to buy the player then they will have to meet the [high] asking price. In some cases there can be an attempt to trigger a bidding war to drive the fee up even further. A club who know they must sell will hope for an auction involving, for example, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona, and they will not be too unhappy if the media report a flurry of rival bids.
When an official offer is finally made — and yes, they really do still arrive by fax — a club will know very quickly just how much the player wants to leave. Stand-offs and brinkmanship will follow as the hard-nosed, tough business of negotiating the right deal begins.
A club’s bargaining position will be dictated entirely by their financial position. If they are under no pressure to sell they can probably withstand the relentless attempts to buy their star player. If they really want to. But in most circumstances, a fee is ultimately agreed and the rest is a formality.
One obvious reason for spinning out the sale is to give time to find a replacement. This is not always possible and can lead to overpaying as other clubs are well aware that the imminent sale proceeds are burning a hole in your pocket and time may be short.
People should not be surprised that player contracts are often agreed very quickly and medicals too when you consider that most of these details have often been discussed by those independent agents at the outset and long before the window opens in many cases. That’s what agents do. As an industry, football is incredibly efficient at executing transactions. The club negotiations may seem to take an eternity, but once agreement is reached it is simply a case of inserting the remuneration terms, length of deal and signatures on the standardised player contracts and registration forms and then faxing them to the Premier League. That’s why deals agreed at 11pm can be processed by midnight.
Managers, chief executives and chief scouts will be holding meetings across the country today to discuss their strategy for the month ahead. Plan A will be for targets to be acquired quickly, those they want to move out to be done even earlier and to keep their in form and most important players. The clubs who will enjoy January most are those who have close co-ordination between the manager, his scouting department and the CEO.
Knowing exactly what you want, the limit you’re prepared to pay for a player, and the least you’d be prepared to accept for one of your own is essential. It is also wise to consider and agree on back up alternatives in advance, be prepared for midcourse correction and to have plenty of caffeine on hand.
