[Football] Why do transfers take so long

[ElectricNaz]

Why not jump on a zoom or teams call for half an hour. Discuss. At least get the basics I.e:

"we will give you £80million top end, including clauses"

"No we want £100m"

"We won't pay that. We'll give you £85m. Final offer"

"ends zoom call"

Why does it have to go on for months and months.

Surely one team has a price they will sell at and another team has a price that they will go to. Such a strange sport we love.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Buy out clauses?

 

[rool]

 

[Coldeanseagull]

It takes more than half an hour for agents to talk nonsense to their clients and more nonsense to the clubs

 

[ElectricNaz]

It takes more than half an hour for agents to talk nonsense to their clients and more nonsense to the clubs

But this whole "club X have been preparing a bid"

Preparing Either they have money or they don't

 

[Hugo Rune]

Lots of players not agreeing personal terms at the moment.

https://x.com/westham_central/status/1690474257682173952?s=46&t=u_CT4gi97bff8P8w8EcoYw

Old Slabhead probably wants £250k pw. Will probably end up with Manure’s U21s (and in the Southgate’s England team of course).

 

[portlock seagull]

Greed

 

[trueblue]

I don't think it's the negotiations that take so long. It's both sides keeping their options open and waiting for pieces of the jigsaw to fall into place (moving players on, holding off to see if other targets become available etc).

 

[Machiavelli]

Because 'ees complicated'

 

[sparkie]

Because there is a secret team in Premier League HQ who writes the scripts and choreographs all the transfer dramas.

 

[jcdenton08]

In the same way buying a house takes a long time if there is a chain. Teams often can’t say yes if they haven’t got a replacement lined up, and so on and so on.

 

[US Seagull]

It is frustrating, but it is a complicated three-way negotiation. First (ideally, wink, wink) the buying team the selling team have to agree on a deal including the structure of payment, add-ons and things like sell-on clauses. Once that is done, the buying team can talk the player, which they have definitely not already been doing, no siree. Then the player (or their agent) has to agree a contract with their (potential) new team, including wages, bonus, clauses, sign-on fees and the all important envelope full of cash for the agent.

Add it a lot of, "we'll have to think about this" pauses and "we have to consider our options" or "we can sell until we have a replacement lined up" or "We have other offers on the table" and it all can take a very long time. Until the deadline is looming, of course, then stuff can happen really quickly.