EXCLUSIVE: Lifting the lid on transfer deadline day

As the end of August approaches, so does a familiar football ritual: transfer deadline day.

Since the invention of the window in 2002-03, they have changed the nature of transfer negotiations.

iSportconnect have tried to lift the lid on what goes on during transfer deadline day – speaking to various people involved in the process.

Daniel Lowen is a partner at Couchmans LLP – a specialist sports law firm. Lowen, first of all, explained how complex a normal transfer can be, without the added time pressure the deadline brings:

“Transfers differ in complexity. At one end of the spectrum, transfers can be extremely complicated, with numerous taxation, image rights, commercial, political and regulatory issues, through to relatively straight forward deals at the other end where the negotiation concerns little more than the transfer fee and the player’s salary. No matter the complexity however, early on in the process all of the parties in a transfer will, or should, be conducting due diligence. The buying club will want to conduct DD on the selling club, the player and the intermediary, and that DD can cover all manner of things. They can look at the player’s contractual status, whether there’s a release clause, the player’s training history, his salary demands, 3rd party ownership issues, medical history, etc. The selling club will also do its DD on the buying club, looking at their history of paying debts on time and considering whether any security may be required.”

This transfer window has already seen big deals done, most notably Paul Pogba breaking the world transfer record fee,moving from Juventus to Manchester United. Lowen explained that while bigger deals are not necessarily more complex, inevitably additional issues arise when the sums of money in question are high:

“When there is a large fee involved, the transaction tends to be more complex, because it often brings in other considerations, such as an image rights side to the deal, significant taxation considerations and cross-border issues, and there can be multiple sets of regulations to be borne in mind.

The higher the level of transfer fee,the greater the media scrutiny and the fans’ expectations, and pressure can quickly mount on players’ representatives and individuals within clubs (more often than not the chief executives, managers and sporting directors), to get deals across the line.”

Alan Curbishley has 17 years in management,with Charlton and West Ham. He knows first hand how many clauses are in modern deals.

“You see a lot of transfers now where clauses are activated.” Admitted Curbishley. “That the agent and player have inserted a clause in their contracts. The clauses are suppose to be confidential but they’re not are they? Once they get activated it’s very difficult. Some players won’t sign a contract unless there is a clause in there. Those sort of things have been slipped in over the years and have made it so difficult. These agents now have integrated their way into every single deal.”

However on transfer deadline day, suddenly that already difficult process is cut to hours. While some transfers may have been a work in progress for a while, some are as a result of being backed into a corner. Lowen explains how sometimes the ground shifts beneath the clubs’ feet in the course of an hour on transfer deadline day:

“What can be an extremely lengthy process can suddenly become crammed into the space of only a few hours. For some players moving on deadline day, the process leading up to the transfer will have been going on for a period of time. For other players, however, it can be a nerve-racking experience, as they wake up on transfer deadline day not knowing where they will be plying their trade the following day.

Also, because there tends to be so much activity, clubs can find themselves in positions that they perhaps didn’t expect to be in. Therefore they quickly need to assess new targets and make snap decisions that can have a profound impact upon the rest of their season. Many of the usual pressures inherent in a transfer are still present, but the process then needs to be conducted extremely quickly and efficiently.”

Curbishley knows that pressure first-hand.

“A manager could phone you up and enquire about a player and the next thing is that the agent knows and the player wants to go. Transfers now are so difficult to do now. The players and agents know what other players and agents have got. The transfer window should perhaps be extended until October and then it’s done – we don’t have theJanuary one. We talk about how players can be taken away from you, when you’ve had a good start to the season and you don’t want that player to go.”

With all the deals going on, it forces clubs to make big decisions at very short notice. Lowen admits it’s a daunting prospect:

“A club has to be as sure as it can be that its decisions involving significant sums of money are the correct ones for the club. It’s an extremely high pressured environment. But when all parties are pulling in the same direction, then you can achieve things that may have looked unlikely at the start of the day.

We do work right the way up to the deadline, and we sometimes tie up loose ends after it has passed. It’s often a late night – we’ve got down to a matter of minutes, rather than seconds. But does it go down to seconds for the clubs sometimes? Yes.”

In the old days, those seconds may be spent staring at a fax machine – a fax with the signed documents was needed to complete every transfer. But now international transfers are handled by FIFA’sTransfer Matching System (TMS) – which is 100% digital.

While FIFA TMS have massively simplified the process, some football clubs in the UK still prefer to use fax machines to get documentation to the Football Association – as they feel it’s quicker than scanning and uploading documents.

This transfer window is likely to see a record amount of money moving – the Premier League alone is expected to spend £1billion for the first time.

Just spare a thought for the small army of lawyers, agents and administrators who will be up against at midnight!

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