Planet Swans ArchivesFrom next season, the football league clubs will be subject to the same transfer window that affects Premiership clubs currently after they accepted defeat in their battle not to introduce them!
It means that from the end of this season, league clubs will only be able to conduct transfer activity in both the off season and in the window which runs from 1-31 January annually.
The move will be a blow not just for the Swans with league clubs able at present to keep their wage bills down at the start of the season but also able to transact during the whole season until the normal transfer deadline day in March each season.
This season alone Kenny Jackett has been able to bring in Andy Gurney, Ijah Anderson, Marc Goodfellow and Scott Fitzgerald during the season – all of which he will be unable to do next term. It could see the situation where league clubs are hit by long term injuries early in the season but have to play through with youth players until they can bring in new additions in January.
The transfer window has never proved a major problem in the Premiership although it has drawn massive criticism when clubs change managers as the new manager can only play with the previous incumbents squad until the window opens. However, the football league is not the Premiership and huge playing squads are not the norm particularly in the lower two divisions. If we take our game against Bury as an example we would have had to live through the five suspensions we had and made the most of it.
Football League director of operations Andy Williamson: “This is the third season where we’ve had an exemption.
“That will not apply any more – there’s not going to be any further extended period of flexibility.”
Court action had been hinted at, in an effort to allow clubs from the Championship, League One and League Two to deal throughout the year.
But Football League chairman Sir Brian Mawhinney jas sent a letter to all member clubs which recognises Fifa’s authority in the matter.
There is no doubt that the changes will be causing a few re-thinks in strategy at clubs over the course of the close season and it could well see that clubs opt to spend their playing budget on more players rather then more on certain players.
of course from our position the good news is that all are affected but at the same time, those affected more will be those with lower turnover of income who cannot afford to bring in more players than they already have and have relied on being able to use the loan system to their advantage when they needed it.
Another blow for the smaller club?
