Why The Transfer Window Is Bad For Us .

[Major Isewater]

In the nineties football was in turmoil and clubs sought ways to protect themselves from European community laws that threatened to undermine the power and very existance of the game we know and love .

The Bosman ruling switched the power to the players leading to an instabilty in the running of a football club . That a player and an asset could just up sticks and walk when he wanted.

The solution was the transfer window ,adopted in 2002.

It was said that managers could spend more time coaching , less time chasing new players and fending off agents .

However it seems that the football is incidental to the drama of the transfer market where clubs are judged by how much they spend .

Why should we worry ?

Well the concept of building a team like our famous promotion side of 75-76 is finished . Players development is blocked as the club just go out and buy the " best " ready made replacement for his position .

Vast sums of money are going out of the game to agents etc which means just one thing for us , higher prices .

Accepting that gate revenue is less important these days we are still paying more for watching players who are not giving value for money ,.We pay higher and higher Tv subscriptions .

Shirts , programmes and other merchandise have become luxury items .

The transfer window encourages wild spending as clubs fear they will lose out and we the fans , like turkeys voting for Christmas , lap it all up .

How long before the money strangles the life out of the beautiful game ?

[Mad Cyril]

Bit like cigarettes and alcohol....once you get the habit the price becomes largely irrelevant.

Oh, and premium rate sex lines. Forgot those.

[LondonBristolian]

I don't really believe the transfer window makes a massive difference to the issues you raise.  I think clubs would rush out and buy the best talent, whether or not there was a transfer window.  And indeed, by the time it was brought it in, clubs were already massively upping their spending.

 

My big frustration with the summer window is that it would be better to end it the day before the new season rather than have August drag on with prices still high and players starting the season only to depart within a few weeks.