Football agents and clubs concentrate on players wages and finances as transfers take backseat
Thursday 2 April 2020 18:59, UK
The transfer window has taken a backseat while football agents concentrate on the welfare and wages of their players and clubs consider the financial implications of the coronavirus outbreak.
Clubs are not really thinking about transfers at the moment, what they are thinking about are finances, wage cuts for players and how they are going to survive.
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If this season is not completed the 20 Premier League clubs could end up losing about £750m between them. For instance, the biggest clubs, if they don't get all the TV money they were expecting, if they don't get money from UEFA for Champions League and Europa League broadcast rights, they are looking at big holes in their accounts.
Some of the big clubs in the Premier League could lose about £100m, so you have to bear that in mind before you start talking about transfers.
We don't even know if there is going to be a transfer window this year. The agents I've been speaking to are telling me that they are concentrating on the health and welfare of their players. They say 'we want to make sure that our players are well, that their families are well, they are keeping fit and being looked after and also, financially, they are going to be secure going forward'.
One agent said: "No one is thinking about the window right now. Who knows what state everyone is going to be in then? Will clubs have money to spend? Will players want to move home?"
We hear and read a lot about Premier League players who are getting paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week but there are lots of other players further down the leagues who get paid wages which are much more in line with what the average person earns so they have real concerns about their short-term futures and their agents are trying to help them out with that.
People are not really thinking about transfers and I think if we do have a transfer window this year it could end up being very flat, very quiet, it could end up being a buyer's market because the clubs really do not have that much money at the moment, especially not money to spend on transfers.
According to KPMG, clubs in Europe's big five leagues are facing losing €4bn (£3.5bn) because of the pandemic.
With that in mind, it is naive to think it will be business as usual if and when the window opens.
Scouting and contract renewals
Quite a few clubs have closed down their recruitment and scouting operations. Obviously, it is impossible to scout or recruit players at the moment. What they are doing is using online tools a lot more, using data and analysis a lot more.
If we do have a transfer window this year, what we are going to see is more loans, more loans with options to buy, more free transfers and it will be interesting to see what happens to players who are out of contract on June 30.
FIFA are working very hard at the moment to try and come up with a solution to see if there is a way to extend their contracts to the end of the season, whenever that may be. But I anticipate quite a few players who were turning down contracts at their clubs may be tempted to sign on with those clubs again because the future is so uncertain.
