Player transfers and contracts

Every single football transfer window, your favourite football club and others all around the world are able to facilitate the transfers of world-class players from other different clubs in the same league or country. They can also be brought in from abroad, from internationally respected clubs such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Paris Saint Germain, Manchester United and many more.

Transfers are one of the most important parts of football business because everything that occurs behind the behind-the-scenes affects a significant amount of the things that happen on the pitch, and vice versa, but we’ll discuss that in further detail later. Absolutely out-of-this-world sums of money are exchanged between top clubs in order to acquire the players that the club wants. These sums can sometimes even go over the limit of 100 million British pounds, and in one case, even more than 200 million pounds, when Neymar Jr. moved to PSG from Barcelona in August 2017 for a whopping £222 million! In this section, we’ll discuss how these transfers are actually completed.

So what is a transfer in football? The basic definition of a transfer is when one club pays a fee demanded by another club in order to sign one of their players, in order to strengthen their squad. A player could even be signed not only if it benefits them in terms of ability, but also from the point of view of maximising revenue with shirt sales and sponsorships.

If a player is under contract at a club, then the buying club has to pay a certain transfer fee to acquire the services of the player. The fee is calculated and estimated based on player ability, commercial value, contract length, and potential, which is most directly related to the age of the player.

When a club is interested in buying a player, the first course of action would be for a club representative to make a formal enquiry to the club that currently holds the player under contract. If the club is willing to sell that player for a specific fee, then the question is put to the player himself as to whether or not he wants to move. Sometimes the case is that a player may not want to move to the club in question, however, they are forced to because the transfer fee proposed by the club in question is too good to resist, or the player may be deemed surplus to requirements by his current club. After a transfer fee is agreed between both clubs, then the player, the player’s agent and the buying club all have to negotiate a contract for the player that includes his wages, bonuses, contract length, and other customisable clauses that meet the requirements of both player and club.

A free transfer is when a player’s contract has expired at a club, and they are not contracted to any club anymore. This means that other clubs could sign that player without paying a transfer fee, but just negotiate a contract with the player and his agent with wages, bonuses and clauses.

A lot of the time, football clubs go behind the backs of the clubs that the player is under contract with, and directly contact the player to discuss their desire to join the new club and try to propose a project that would appeal to a player. This is illegal in football, but it happens extremely frequently and it is very difficult to enforce by football governing bodies considering the fact that so many of these calls and conversations happen off-the-record.

In the process of a transfer, the player’s agent or representative is very important while negotiating a good contract for the player. The player and the agent talk about what’s best for the player in terms of wages, contract length and agreed playing time. The agent will put forward this offer to the club, and they will negotiate this amount. The agent will also demand an agent fee from the club for negotiating the contract, because that is their income. Examples of the two most decorated agents in the football world are Mino Raiola and Jorge Mendes, who boast the likes of global superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David de Gea, Erling Haaland, Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and more. According to BBC Sport, in the 2019-2020 Premier League season itself, clubs paid agents more than £263 million in fees. A breakdown of these fees have been listed below.

(Source: BBC Sport- https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53170215)

There are two official transfer windows that take place, one during pre-season, and one midway through the season. These are known as summer and winter transfer windows. The winter transfer window generally opens on the 1st of January, and ends on the 31st, where players can join other clubs. The summer transfer window opens and closes based on the start and finish dates of footballing seasons, and the exact dates are decided by a UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) general committee. The point of a summer transfer is to reinforce the squad for the new season, and add players that will meet the requirements of the club, and the point of a winter transfer window is to further bolster the squad, or buy emergency players in the case of an injury crisis.

A transfer request is when a player officially makes it clear to his current club that he would like to move to another club and the reasons for this could be things like lack of playing time, falling out with staff and manager, change of heart, or unfair treatment. In this case, the player has to be transfer listed where other clubs can express an interest in the player. Oftentimes, when a player is transfer listed, their asking price drops significantly because they have to be sold no matter what according to the player because after all, the player will be considered a liability to the club due to his wages considering the fact that he is not playing for the club anymore.