Transfer (association football)
In professional association football, a transfer is when a player under contract moves from one club to another. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration to their new club. In general, players can only be transferred during a transfer window and according to the rules set by a governing body. A transfer fee is the agreed financial compensation paid by the new club to the selling club.
When a player moves from one club to another, their old contract is terminated whilst the player and their new club will both negotiate on new contract terms, or have earlier agreed on the personal terms. A transfer in association football differs from a trade in American, Canadian, and Australian sports, where teams essentially exchange players and their contracts, occasionally including cash as well. In some cases, football transfers operate in a similar way, as teams can exchange players as part of the deal. According to FIFA, from January to September 2018 there were 15,049 international transfers of male players with fees totalling US$7.1 billion, and 577 international transfers of female players for US$493,235.
Most transfer activity is conducted during the European summer transfer window, between 1 July and 31 August each year, with slight variations of the start date and end dates for each domestic league. Some transfers also occur during the European winter transfer window of 1–31 January. The transfer deadline dates of the windows are solely reliant upon the country jurisdiction of the purchasing club, in order to register newly transferred players. Football clubs worldwide may sell the playing rights of a contracted player at any time to another club whose country's transfer window is still open. In addition, free agents may be signed at any time outside the transfer windows.
History
Early days of transfers
The concept of a football transfer first came into existence in England after The Football Association introduced player registration sometime after 1885. Before that, a player could agree to play one or more matches for any football club. After the FA recognised professionalism in 1885, it sought to control professional players by introducing a player registration system. Players had to register with a club each season, even if he remained with the same club as in the season before. A player was not allowed to play until he was registered for that season. Once a player was registered with a club he was not allowed to be registered with or play for another club during the same season without the permission of the FA and the club that held his registration. However players were free to join another club before the start of each season, even if their former club wished to retain them.Sometime after the Football League was formed in 1888 the Football League decided to introduce the retain-and-transfer system, which restricted clubs from luring players from other clubs, thereby preventing clubs from losing their players and preventing the league from being dominated by a handful of rich clubs. From the start of the 1893–94 season onwards, once a player was registered with a Football League club, he could not be registered with any other club, even in subsequent seasons, without the permission of the club he was registered with. It applied even if the player's annual contract with the club holding their registration was not renewed after it expired. The club was not obliged to play them and, without a contract, the player was not entitled to receive a salary. Nevertheless, if the club refused to release his registration, the player could not play for any other Football League club. Football League clubs soon began to demand and earn a transfer fee from any other Football League club as consideration for agreeing to release or transfer the player's registration.
In 1912 Charles Sutcliffe helped establish the legality of this retain-and-transfer system when he successfully represented his club Aston Villa during the Kingaby case. The former Villa player Herbert Kingaby had brought legal proceedings against the club for preventing him from playing. However an erroneous strategy pursued by Kingaby's counsel resulted in the suit being dismissed. In England, the "retain" aspect of the system was removed after a decision by the High Court in 1963 in Eastham v Newcastle United that it was unreasonable.
1995: Bosman ruling
The transfer system remained unchanged until the Bosman ruling. The ruling is named after Jean-Marc Bosman, a former Belgian footballer who in 1990 was registered with Belgian Cup winners RFC Liège. His contract had expired and he was looking to move to French team Dunkerque, but Dunkerque refused to pay the transfer fee of £500,000 that Liège were asking for. Bosman was left in limbo and his wages were cut by 75% due to him not playing. After a lengthy legal battle, Bosman won his case on 15 December 1995 when the European Court of Justice ruled players should legally be free to move when their contract expired.The first high-profile "Bosman transfer" was Edgar Davids, who departed Ajax for Milan, but lasted just one year in Milan before moving to league rivals Juventus for a fee of over £5 million. The same summer, Luis Enrique made the controversial decision to let his Real Madrid contract run down by signing for league rivals Barcelona. In 1999, Steve McManaman departed his boyhood club Liverpool for Real Madrid, while Sol Campbell was arguably the most controversial Bosman transfer of all-time when in 2001, he moved from Tottenham Hotspur to local fierce rivals Arsenal. In 2011, playmaker Andrea Pirlo notably completed his contract with Milan before moving to Juventus. In 2014, it was announced Borussia Dortmund striker Robert Lewandowski would leave the club for league rivals Bayern Munich in the upcoming summer when his contract expired.
Another impact the case had was the rules regarding foreign players. Before the ruling was made, clubs throughout Europe were limited to the number of foreign players they could employ, and could only play a maximum of three in European competition. FIFA noted it was "disappointed" in the ruling, while Gordon Taylor thought the decision would have a major impact and would "lead to a flood of foreign players... to the detriment of our game". The ruling ensured a team could now choose to play a team of 11 foreign players if it wanted, as was the case when Chelsea became the first team to do so in December 1999. By 2007, the percentage of foreign players in England and Germany had reached 57%, compared with 39% in Spain and France and 30% in Italy. The last team to field an all-English starting line-up was Aston Villa in February 1999, nine months before the first all-foreign squad fielded by a club team in a football match.
2002: Transfer window created
Although there were leagues already implementing the practice, UEFA decided to enforce a continental transfer window in time for the 2002–03 season. UEFA chief executive Gerhard Aigner said that part of the reason behind making the transfer window compulsory was to ensure a partial stabilisation of club squads during the season and to "stop the confusion that has followed Bosman", and, with regards to it possibly damaging smaller clubs financially, he said it did not make sense that clubs would "depend on the transfer of a single player to survive the season". From 2002 to the present day, most leagues around Europe have two windows in which players may be purchased: the end of the season to 31 August, and then for the entirety of the month of January. In England, the club chairmen felt they were "reluctantly being forced" to accept the proposal, and FIFA eventually relaxed the rules regarding out-of-contract players, which enabled them to sign a contract with a new club at any time, thus not depriving football players of income outside of the season’s transfer window.2003: Loan laws updated
In 2003, the English Premier League scrapped a law which forbade loans between clubs in the league. Professional Footballers' Association chairman Gordon Taylor was critical of the change, fearing the new system would "erode the sporting and competitive element of the game". In February 2004, Newcastle United allowed striker Lomana LuaLua to move on loan to fellow Premier League club Portsmouth for three months for a £100,000 fee. On 29 February, LuaLua scored an 89th-minute equaliser against Newcastle in a 1–1 draw, later apologizing to Newcastle supporters. The law was again changed to block players from playing against their parent club, a move which Graham Taylor was critical of. Long-time Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger has been critical of the rule on numerous occasions. In 2012, he asked for the rules to be changed so that only players aged 21 and under can be loaned; in 2013, he said the rule lacks "integrity"; and in 2014, said the system was "not defendable" and protects the clubs who loan players out. In 2013, Football League clubs voted unanimously to close a "ludicrous" loophole which had allowed Watford to loan 14 players from abroad, including ten from Udinese.2006–2014: Third-party ownership controversy
On transfer deadline day in August 2006, West Ham United pulled off what was described as a "major coup" by signing Argentina World Cup stars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano from Corinthians. West Ham's official press release stated Tevez and Mascherano had "been signed for an undisclosed fee and put pen to paper on permanent contracts", but that "all other aspects of the transfers will remain confidential and undisclosed". Mystery shrouded the transfer immediately with regards to who owned the rights to the players, and continued until three years later when Tevez signed for Manchester United. In March 2007, West Ham were charged over the transfers, with the Premier League claiming the club had breached two regulations, U6 and U18, which state respectively, "No person may either directly or indirectly be involved in or have any power to determine or influence the management or administration of more than one club," and, "No club shall enter into a contract which enables any other party to that contract to require the ability materially to influence its policies or the performance of its teams in league matches." West Ham escaped a points deduction, but were given a record fine of £5.5 million by the Premier League. Tevez was also cleared to carry on playing for the club, and he scored the goal on the final matchday of the season, which kept West Ham in the Premier League. Sheffield United, who were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the season, sued West Ham and eventually received a settlement of approximately £20 million.Mascherano agreed to leave West Ham to join Liverpool on loan in January 2007, but had to wait for the Premier League to ratify the transfer due to the previous controversy, and the transfer was cleared three weeks later. On 29 February 2008, Liverpool signed Mascherano on a four-year contract, with a fee of £18 million paid to agent Kia Joorabchian. After Joorabchian had paid £2 million to West Ham, Tevez departed for Manchester United at the end of the season on a two-year loan, with United paying £5 million per year. After the loan ended, Tevez transferred to United's rivals Manchester City for a reported fee of £47 million.
In 2008, the Premier League banned third-party ownership in England, and in 2012, then-UEFA president Michel Platini released a statement in which plans to ban third-party ownership were revealed, stating that "the committee decided that the ownership of football players by third parties should be prohibited as a matter of principle", while then UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said, "Third-party ownership of players bears many threats and there are many issues linked with the integrity of the competition and it is really time to regulate that and to have a stance on that." In 2014, Platini again called for the practice to end: "If FIFA fails to act, we will address this issue in our own competitions in Europe. The UEFA Executive Committee has already adopted a position on this issue in principle, and we will see this through," also adding it is a "danger to our sport" and "threatens the integrity of our competitions, damages football's image, poses a long-term threat to clubs' finances and even raises questions about human dignity". He was backed by FIFPro, the worldwide representative organisation for 65,000 professional football players, who stated the rights of the players were "under attack". In September 2014, it was announced by then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter that third-party ownership was to be banned completely following an indeterminate transitional period.