transfer window to be scrapped...

[Syteanric 1]

http://mobi.supersport.com/football/transfer-watch/news/131217/FIFPro_calls_for_overhaul_of_transfer_system

It was bought in to counter the bosman ruling and some might say has restricted freedom of movement.

I am suprised it has taken this long tbh, had one high profile player challenged it i feel Fifa would have dropped it in a flash.

Article is a good read.

[Bill 1,788]

eh ?where does it say it is to be scrapped - it doesn''tall this is is just an article lifted from the BBC football site they carried earlier

[PurpleCanary 6,386]

People who don''t like the current system, and in particular the January window, are either to young to know or have forgotten the faults of the old system. Under which any club not at the very top of the pyramid (which we have never been) could lose its best players pretty much all the way through the season. Our summer rebuff to Chelsea over Ruddy meant we knew we had him at least until January. Not so in the past.The latest complaint seems to be from the LMA, that managers are now being sacked in November and December, ahead of the winter window. And there is plainly some truth in that. But at least managers who survive to January now have a bit of reassurance that they are safe. Beforehand the axe could fall at any time, because, the argument was, the new man could still wheel and deal in the transfer market.

[city4eva 242]

January window should be scrapped and all transfers should be done in the close season and completed by the start of season IMO

[a1canary 0]

Some great points in there Purps.

It''s often a nightmare month for clubs but equally, it redresses some of the power balance between small and large clubs. How many times have we seen small clubs being able to stand firm on a player leaving and keep them for the rest of the season, or get a massive offer. (Rhodes, CMS, Bennett, Hooper...) Granted Celtic werent the smaller club in the Hooper saga but smaller league at least!

Without the window closing on Jan 31st, all those players would have been lured away before the end of the season almost certainly.

[Yellow Wal 315]

The window is certainly good for the lesser clubs and acts as a safeguard to keeping players.

What is needed now is the restriction of players (over 21) signed on for a club, not the 25 man squad rule, as this, to a degree works, but the number of registrations held by a club in excess of the 25 man squad.

The top clubs seem to have extra players that they do not use but other clubs cannot sign.

The loan system is being abused to, apparently, give younger players the opportunity to play in good competition. A return to a meaningful Reserve League would give the fringe players of the 25 man squad a chance to shine at the club, give players who are not part of that 25 man squad football and give the youngsters the chance to develop at their parent club instead of being sent from pillar to post all over the country as happens now. Certainly the quality of players playing in a league such as that could be of a better quality than League Two, League One or even the Championship. Additionally clubs could more easily monitor the progress of their own players.

With sufficient prize money being given clubs could further develop their youth structures.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,202]

How soon we forget. The idea of a player moving at any point during the season and there not being a big window-induced transfer frenzy seems weird. What would SSN do without the window?! You get used to things so much and then looking back on how it used to be seems weird. I still have a video of Italia 90. Seeing players pass back to the goalkeeper and them picking it up just seems so odd!

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

Can you imagine if QPR had been able to buy players at any time in  a desperate bid to avoid relegation ?  The transfer window is a great idea, it would be really bad for football to drop it.  I hope this goes nowwhere.

[pete_norw 0]

[quote user="city4eva"]January window should be scrapped and all transfers should be done in the close season and completed by the start of season IMO[/quote]

This has been my argument for years, it would give managers and players alike the sense of security knowing their future is set for the following season at least. and fans wouldn''t waste money on players names for their shirts,

[Bethnal Yellow and Green 2,424]

The January transfer window is needed for the Scandinavian leagues that still operate on a Jan - Dec calendar. The January transfer window is their close/pre-season transfer window. Closing the window would mean they wouldn''t be able to sell players to the other European leagues in thier close season, most club rely on this revenue to survive.

[hertfordyellow 462]

Should clubs only be able to change manager during the windows do you think? Less knee jerk sackings potentially?

[Aggy 944]

Where does this mention transfer windows? I would say this is challenging the very transfer fees themselves. Have a look at Webster, Matuzalem, De Sanctis and Mexes cases (also a few less significant ones such as Olivier Bernard when he left Lyon for Newcastle) - they revolve around Article 17 of FIFA''s transfer regulations, which essentially determines what happens if a player unilaterally breaches his contract; what compensation and sanctions will be in place? Those four cases above (and a few less significant ones) essentially tried to say that transfer fees themselves breached free movement principles.

At the moment under Article 17, there is a ''protected period'' of a player''s contract whereby if he breaches his contract with club A to go to club B withouth the permission of club A, the player will have sporting sanctions such as being banned from playing. The buying club may also get sanctions (such as clubs who are banned from buying players due to tapping up).

The protected period is, I believe, the first 2 years of the contract if the player is under the age of 28 when signing it, and the first year if the player is over the age of 28.

If the player breaches his contract outside of the protected period (ie; in the 3rd or 4th years of a long contract), then there are no sporting sanctions. However, whenever a player unilaterally breaches his contract, there are always financial ''compensation'' fees which will penalise him, whether in or out of the ''protected period''.

The challenges in the 4 cases I mentioned above were 1) that the sporting sanctions infringed free movement - they stop players from finding work wherever they want in Europe, as they could be banned from working for months or years; 2) that the compensation packages did likewise - if you''re having to pay millions in compensation then you''re not being able to move freely wherever you want for work; and therefore 3) the whole transfer system - ie; where you cannot move clubs without either a transfer fee or a huge compensation package and sporting sanctions - restricts free movement of the players.

The ECJ held that the sporting sanctions were necessary for the ''spirit of sport'' (there is a lot of case law on sport being separate from big business - going back as far as a cyclist called Koch in the 70s; to cut a long story short there is now a doctrine in place called the "specificity of sport" which means that EU principles are allowed to be flexible in order to preserve sporting competitiveness. However, the flexibility is becoming less apparent the more that sport becomes big business rather than traditional sport).

So essentially what the challenge is here, as far as I can see, is that the whole idea of paying any sort of fee, or having sporting sanctions, when you want to move club is a restriction of free movement. And, to be fair, in comparison to the rights of "ordinary" workers it is a restriction.

The question really is where the ECJ will draw the line as regards how much to balance the players'' free movement against the need for competitiveness in sport. Will they completely scrap transfer fees? Unlikely. Will they drop the compensatory sum due under Article 17 to a small figure? They did in Webster. The other cases I mentioned above though soon pushed it back up - and now the compensation is worked out in such a way as to come up with a transfer fee.

Webster moved for £125k in the end (what he was owed on the remainder of his contract - so he just "bought himself out"). The others though have gone for millions of pounds more than what was left on their contract. Their valuation was boosted by recent transfer bids and all sorts of financial equations. Essentially, they had to pay a transfer fee.

FIFPro or whoever can continue to challenge the transfer system, but I think it is very unlikely that it will go away completely. A player being able to move for virtually nothing whenever he wants is entirely uncompetitive. Think about the last game of the season a couple of years ago when City won the title on the last day - City could have gone out and chucked huge wages at all of the Man Utd players just before the last game of the season. The players could have moved, Man Utd would have got nothing, Man City win the league easily because Utd have lost all their best players at a crucial point of the season.

Personally, I can''t see there being much of a change any time soon.

[Reggie Strayshun 0]

[quote user="Aggy"].

Personally, I can''t see there being much of a change any time soon.[/quote]Tend to agree with this Aggy. No one system is ever going to please all of the people all of the time. I too have never seen the sense from a UK perspective of a Jan window, though , as someone else has said, there has to be one for N European leagues who play in the summer.The one indisputable fact is that any sort of artificial "window" seems to drive up fees/wages.