Daily Football Transfer Rumours

How do football transfers work?

Tuesday, 06. 2. 2009  –  Category: Guide to Football Transfer Rumours

Get Transfer Rumours by RSS | You should follow us on Twitter

In spite of all the glitz and glamour of football, players are still traded like cattle. While the cattle may have some ability to effect the situation, ultimately, they are still horse traded by CEO types in dark smoky rooms over glasses of fine whiskey. Please note that small clubs will go through a process similar to this, it’s just that some people may wear many hats. Please also note that this is the process that managers would like to happen, it very rarely ends up working this way.

The ‘British’ (as opposed to the ‘European’, more on that soon) process of football transfers should work a little something like this.

Step 1: Identify the requirements
As a season (or half season) draws to a close, the club board will draw up targets for the manager, for example “We want to come in the top ten, and get in the last 16 of the FA Cup. The managers task is to assess the feasibility of this objective.

Step 2: Spot the gaps
Once the manager has been assigned their task, they will look at their squad and make an honest assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of it. Let’s say the manager is worried that their right fullback is a little old and injury prone. The manager will go to the clubs chairman and say “Boss, in order to achieve the lofty ambitions that you’ve set me, I’ll need a new right back”.

Step 3: Determine the money
At this point the board will give the manager insight into how much money they’re able to spend on this player; “If you don’t sell anyone, you can spend £3million this year and then £500k every year for four years on this person.

Step 4: Identify the targets
The manager will then speak to their scouting team; “I’m looking for an attacking right back, who has a decent rate of assists, who is at least 24 and has experience in one of the major European leagues.” At this point the scouting team will review their database of players they’ve scouted and provide a shortlist of players who fulfil the criteria dictated by the manager.

From this list, the manager will review the players to determine which ones best fulfil the needs in the squad. This may include watching videos of the player, talking to players team mates, talking to his agent or manager, watching the player in person, Arsene Wenger watched Jose Antonio Reyes 67 times before he made an offer on him, and he still sucked.

Step 5: Make offers
Once the manager has identified a target, the buying club will make an enquiry to the selling club, a little something like this:

Buying club: Hello? Selling club? I like the look of your right back George Rightback, what kind of offer would it take to prise him from your cold dead hands?
Selling club: George Rightback? He’s a key player, we’d never sell him, not even for £5 million

Step 6: Club Negotiations
(Horse trading occurs)

Step 7: Player negotiation
As the transfer gets nearer to completion; both clubs think they’re likely to be able to trade the player for an amount which is appealing to both parties, the selling club will give the buying club to ‘open talks’ with the player. This does not mean that the deal is done, far from it, it just means both parties believe that the deal could go through. At this point the buying club will discuss with the player (and possibly his agent, and possibly his manager to)

Step 7: Agreement
If the clubs can agree on a price and the player is offered a contract that is acceptable to them, then the deal can be complete. If the deal is made outside of the transfer season, then the player will officially be a player for the buying club when the transfer window opens.

What could possibly go wrong?
This is a fairly complex process already, but when you’re involving all sorts of egos, different languages, different cultures and many stakeholders with different opinions on how much each player can work, you can imagine that all sorts of things can go wrong. We’ll be talking about these in future articles.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tweet This Post

Related Transfer Rumours

1. Key Players in Football Transfers
2. What Effect Does the Buying Club have on Football Transfers?
3. What is Tapping Up?
4. What effect does the agent have on football transfers?
5. What is the Bosman Ruling?

Tags: Guide to Football Transfer Rumours