TransferRoom allows clubs to keep the transfer market open despite travel restrictions
Tuesday 9 June 2020 11:24, UK
Les Ferdinand hopes football's answer to "speed dating" holds the key to a summer of smart recruitment by QPR - even with football gripped by a global pandemic.
The former England striker celebrated five years as director of football at the Championship club just before coronavirus hit the UK.
The COVID-19 crisis may have halted action on the pitch, but online recruitment forum TransferRoom has already given its members a hi-tech way to keep the market open despite travel restrictions imposed by lockdown.
Last week, 13 Premier League clubs and another 15 from the Championship - as well as more than 200 others from five different continents - took part in a 'Virtual Summit' which allowed football personnel to talk transfers online.
"TransferRoom normally picks a venue in London or overseas where sporting directors, recruitment heads and loan managers can get together at each table and mingle with each one that wants to speak you," explained Ferdinand.
"We all agree to abide by the strict time limit of 10 minutes - so it's a bit like speed dating! You tell them what your needs are, they tell you what they've got.
"We spent two hours talking to 15 clubs. I spoke to Monaco and Juventus and they told me what they have in their system in case we want to loan a player.
"The conversation flowed for 10 minutes and there was no danger we would run out of things to talk about! There was one glitch in the whole 15 chats."
The traditional means of transfer negotiations can involve secret meetings at hotels or even pitching up at a motorway service station.
TransferRoom enables club decision-makers to see which players are available, and communicate directly through a secure messaging system.
It also allows them to directly pitch players to other clubs searching for a specific profile. It has facilitated over 350 transfers of players worldwide.
Ferdinand revealed that once in the TransferRoom, any two clubs have to agree to want to engage in conversation before a virtual meeting is convened on video call. The 53-year-old welcomed the opportunity to talk face-to-face - without the influence of agents or intermediaries - with buying and selling clubs, as football faces the need to innovate and embrace a new reality.
This is the first time I remember there being a recession and it has affected football
"We selected the clubs in advance that we wanted to speak to and fortunately 15 of those said they wanted to speak to us," he said.
"Speaking to most of the sporting directors, the most common theme that came out of it was that there was no middle-man here.
"It was a 'me and you' situation and we were talking about what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. There was nobody in between claiming one person is saying this and another person is saying that."
QPR have been outspoken in their desire to communicate to the outside world that EFL clubs face huge financial challenges going forward.
Far greater, in fact, than those in the Premier League.
They have worked hard to recruit and develop players following a wild era of excess and overspending which blighted their last two spells in the Premier League.
Rangers now have assets who have attracted interest at home and abroad and the board will hold a crucial meeting on Tuesday, which will be attended virtually by QPR's owners and their manager Mark Warburton.
On the agenda will be the obstacles that lay ahead for the club, which has their captain out of contract and star players wanted by Premier League buyers, with no certainty over future revenue for an indefinite period.
Rangers have already fended off a £3m bid for winger Bright Osayi-Samuel from Belgian side Club Brugge, who can offer Champions League football next season.
The meeting may well pose more questions than answers.
"We're all jumping on a Zoom call. Mark wants to know what we'll have to spend, who we need to go after, and who we need to keep," said Ferdinand.
"We've had an offer from Brugge for Bright but what if he's thinking 'I'd like that'? What will his mental state be in these last nine games? We've got our captain Grant Hall in the final year of his contract, as well as Angel Rangel.
"It's difficult to make offers that will be acceptable to them because we don't know what state we're going to be in when we get back playing.
"We'll have the meeting but even then we may not know much more. This is the first time I remember there being a recession and it has affected football.
"On previous occasions, football has thrived through those situations. This isn't just hitting the game, it's hitting the businesses that fund the game.
"It's possible we could pick up players on more favourable terms, but we have to think about the assets we have at our club.
"If they do leave, we will be holding out for the best possible price."
QPR were enjoying a six-game unbeaten run in the league when COVID-19 brought football and the country as a whole to a standstill.
They'd just recorded their best win of the season - a 3-1 triumph at Preston, where they hadn't won in 40 years - having had a player sent off with the score at 1-1.
It means they have the incentive of hunting down an unlikely top six place with just half a dozen points between themselves and the play-offs.
"We had a bit of momentum before this pandemic hit us," said Ferdinand. "We are always optimistic that we can still reach the play-offs, but it's very difficult to plan when we don't know for certain what division we will be in next season.
"We were looking very favourably at our next four fixtures and most of the clubs we had left to play were in the bottom half of the table.
"We are planning for the Championship next season - if we were to get promoted, we would just have to cross that bridge when we came to it.
"We all know the Premier League and the talent there. It's a little bit more difficult when you're looking in obscure places for players.
"At the moment, we're up against clubs who have not only settled their season, but whose transfer windows are also open.
"For us, the problem is that once you've identified a player, you then want to see them live - and this is the stage of the season when I'd be doing that.
"Nobody wants to buy a player based on what they've seen online. You want to watch that player three or four times before you make a decision.
"We can't watch players right now and that's the problem most clubs are having unless they've seen the player X-amount of times earlier in the season.
"It's very difficult to do a deal on a player without having seen him live."
