http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34084935 Martinez getting quite emotional and almost romantic in his relief at rejecting the Chelsea attempt to remove Stones from Everton. All PL clubs are wealthy now because of the ever increasing SKY money WBA have made a stand against us and look like not letting Berahino go unless they decide. We ourselves have often been subject to aggressive bids, Chelsea and Modric but also United and Carrick and Bebatov and Sherringham. Is this about to change? Difficult to stop the likes of Real Madrid with their government funded swoops because of their great attraction for players but maybe the days of the PL elite poaching from other PL team in mid season is nearly over. Pullis and Martinez have both made the same point about losing players when the season is live. Time to close the window BEFORE the season starts perhaps. I don't think we at Spurs would object because starting the season with a complete and relaxed and prepared squad might be a decent change. Everton showing their stones and staring down Mourinho .......is this football's High Noon!
I don't see how having the window overlap with the season benefits anyone. Open it when the season finishes and close it the day before it starts. Simple.
Apart from SKY perhaps and the media in general in helping to fuel their speculative articles which enable nice sell-able headlines like 'UNITED SWOOP FOR KANE'
Unfortunately for them they've found out that there's always a bigger fish and have been shafted by the Madrid/Marca axis with De Gea.
The problem is that the transfer window will always overlap somewhere. For example, the Brazilian and Argentine seasons run from April-December, while Scandanavia is generally bonkers: Denmark is July-May with a two month winter break, Norway is April-November and Sweden is April-October
The real problem is the dates the season starts, compared to the other major European leagues Premier League - 8th August Bundesliga - 14th August La Liga and Serie A - 22nd August Each of these leagues have 38 rounds of fixtures, and all their seasons finish on 15th May, so there is no logical reason for the Premier League to be kicking off up to two weeks before the others - apart from this one, obviously... please log in to view this image
The Bundesliga has less games, as they have less teams, but I'm not really sure why our season's longer and yet doesn't have a break. Other than the financial aspect, does anyone know what causes that anomaly?
Shut the window at different times for different leagues. The day before that respective league starts.
The obvious difference would be the cup competitions - Spain, Germany, Italy and Holland only have one cup competition per season, and in the case of the Coppa Italia, DFB-Pokal and KNVB Cup all matches are decided on the night with no replays, while the Copa de Rey is a two-legged affair. Compare this to the Premier League, where there's both the FA Cup and the League Cup, and in the case of the FA Cup if a tie isn't decided the tie is replayed. However, that doesn't explain one thing: Ligue 1 kicks off at the same time as the Premier League, they have two cup competitions (the Coup de France and Coup de la Ligue - although neither has replays) yet they have a winter break. That means European clubs won't be able to sign players from South American clubs until the January window (and vice versa) which is a directly violates laws laws on freedom of movement for workers.
It should shut for incoming on the day the season starts. Barca etc can still bid until there season starts but no club is going to sell when they can't replace.
League Cup at least has no replays, hence the penalties in the week. On fixtures, we seem to have less midweek games. The second game of the season always used to be midweek, but we don't do it any more.
Does seem odd, doesn't it? Clubs can sell players outside of their window, they just can't sign them.
Going back to the days of Alan Hardaker the famous secretary of The Football League they were always opposed to a mid season break and I believe it has mostly been the clubs them selves who were against it, not wanting to lose their xmas fixtures.
I'm against it too, as the holiday games are a great tradition and the clubs would only use it as an excuse to tour the world, anyway.
Again, this goes against laws on freedom of movement for workers - but, more than that, with a smaller window of opportunity, the media-backed tapping-up campaigns used by various clubs to unsettle players will be even more obnoxious as they are now. For example, if you thought Los Ladrones do Madrid's tapping-up campaign for bale was bad, imagine what it would've been like if they had an increased sense of urgency to get the deal done a couple of weeks ahead of the current schedule? Levy would've probably had to assign guards to Bale's house to stop various former Factitious players popping round for an unscheduled visit, and we'd have to employ somebody to make sure nobody was spiking the drinks at the training ground.
Having a window at all breaks the rules on freedom of movement, it's only about setting the parameters.
Restrict the hours per season any one player is allowed to play? Rather like the musicians union restrict hours. Would be very complicated.
So, you think there might possibly be a connected, vested interest in that Murdoch owns both Sky and the biggest selling red top rag?
