With the January transfer window coming to an end, Premier League clubs executives met up on Thursday and have voted to go back to their former transfer deadline. The Premier League clubs will now have till the end of August for the summer transfer window. This comes as a big victory for the big six clubs as they will be allowed to buy and sell players until September 1. The reversal comes after clubs had initially voted to introduce an early window closure for the 2018/19 season.
The 20 club executives held a meeting at a central London hotel on Thursday morning. The meeting was mainly to vote on the transfer window extension and also discuss minor league related issues.
Many clubs are said to be unhappy with the current transfer window because they have lost out on players due to inadequate time to negotiate offers as well as players busy match schedule interference.
After last year’s summer transfer, Chelsea and Manchester United are reported to have initiated a move to revert back to the previous transfer system for this season. Initially other clubs voted to stick with the earlier deadline for another year. But after the January transfer window closed, the meeting on Thursday saw Liverpool, Tottenham, and Arsenal have a change of mind. The change is said to be due to the uncertainty that may arise after what they faced in the January transfer window with buying players.
In a statement, the Premier League said: “At a Shareholders’ Meeting today, Premier League clubs voted to adopt a change to the Summer Transfer Window closing date for season 2020/21.”
”This will move the closing date back to the traditional point at the end of August/early September. The 2020 closing date will, therefore, be 17:00 BST on 1 September (31 August 2020 is a UK Bank Holiday). Clubs agreed after discussing the topic at length at previous Shareholders’ Meetings.”
With the likes of Paul Pogba, Willian, Van Djik, and Aubameyang’s future at their perspective clubs uncertain, this will give clubs enough time to hash things over. Clubs will also have enough time to find replacements if need be. Manchester United who let go of Lukaku and Sanchez last summer faulted the shortage of time as the reason for not finding a replacement for both forwards. Hopefully, this new extension will give clubs and players an adequate amount of time to finalize negotiations.
