Window to close before new season

Premier League clubs have agreed to close the summer transfer window the day before the start of the 2018-19 season.

This means clubs will not be allowed to register any new players after 5pm on Thursday, August 9, 2018, but they will still be able to sell players to clubs in leagues where the window is still open, as is currently the case.

In a short statement, the league said: “Premier League clubs have today agreed to a rule amendment that will see the summer transfer window in any year end at 17:00 on the Thursday before the start of the season.

“This is for Premier League clubs only and has no bearing on other leagues and competitions.”

Yesterday’s vote, which was not unanimous, followed weeks of debate about the uncertainty caused to managers and players by three weeks of transfer activity and speculation at the start of a new campaign.

The fact Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain joined Liverpool only five days after playing for Arsenal in a 4-0 defeat at Anfield was raised as an example of the extended window’s potential threat to the integrity of the league.

Not every club has been convinced of this argument, though, with several understood to be concerned about closing the window much earlier than other European leagues.

Yesterday’s decision means Premier League clubs will be unable to replace players they lose to foreign teams in the last few weeks of the window.

Those clubs in favour of shutting the window early were given some comfort this week when Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin said he supported the idea of shortening the time available for signing players each summer.

English Football League clubs are also understood to be keen on closing the window before the season starts and EFL chairman Shaun Harvey told reporters at Soccerex on Tuesday that the league will vote on it at a meeting on September 21.

Transfer windows have been a fixture in the football calendar since 2002 when Fifa made them compulsory after lengthy talks with the European Commission on the game’s transfer system.

They were intended as a compromise between the clubs’ desire for contractual certainty on the one hand, and the players’ rights to freedom of movement on the other.

Since the windows were introduced, Premier League clubs have spent £10bn (€10.9bn) on players, with this summer’s spend a record £1.4bn (€1.52bn).

Brighton manager Chris Hughton welcomed the decision.

Hughton, who signed Sporting Lisbon defender Ezequiel Schelott but missed out on Tottenham striker Vincent Janssen on deadline day, said: “That is good news. I think most managers would say the same. You have a hectic enough time as it is preparing for the season.

“It would make it uncomfortable going into the first week but most of us would prefer to have it then than what we have now, going into the early weeks of the season.”

Swansea head coach Paul Clement outlined his support for the early closure of the transfer window last month.

And Clement expressed his delight that the move would now be going ahead after describing the end to the window last week as “crazy”.

“I welcome it,” Clement said. “My view has not changed and it has been further reinforced because it got crazy towards the final days.

“It should be done before the start of the season so you can concentrate all your efforts on planning and preparing for the matches.

“I think that change is very positive.”