Premier League clubs are set to have a vote on pushing the transfer deadline forward to before the beginning of the season. It has now been confirmed that the Football League will have a discussion about the same topic in the future.
The current transfer window for the Premier League and many other leagues across Europe officially start on 1st July, concluding at 11pm on 31st August. This means that for some leagues, including England’s top four divisions, the transfer window is open for the first few weeks of the season, leaving uncertainty surrounding wantaway players as the campaign gets underway.
This campaign has already seen the window pose a major inconvenience to the futures of Diego Costa, Philippe Coutinho, Alexis Sanchez and Riyad Mahrez. All players’ situations still seem to be up in the air despite the season already getting started, which is not ideal for the players, their parent clubs, or the clubs who may wish to sign them.
Coutinho, Alexis and Costa all missed the opening weekend alongside Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk, Everton’s Ross Barkley and Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson with uncertainty surrounding their futures increasing. Some of these absences were due to alleged injuries, but this only served to fuel the fire of rumours about whether they wish to leave their clubs.
Now the Football League have released a statement saying that they too will be in discussion over the change:
“The EFL Board and its Clubs have previously expressed the opinion that closing the summer transfer window in advance of the season commencing would be an improvement on the current position.
“On this basis we will be tabling the matter for discussion with Clubs in September.
“It will be important that all the consequences of such a decision are fully considered, as the requirements of our Clubs are different to those in Europe’s top flight leagues.”
The proposed changes will prevent teams from England’s top four divisions from adding to their squad once the season begins, though the January window will not be affected. The vote is set to take place at the next shareholders’ meeting on 7th September.
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