Premier League Clubs Vote to Close Transfer Window Before Start of 2018/19 Season

Premier League clubs have collectively voted to close the summer transfer window before the start of the season from the 2018/19 campaign onward.

Premier League clubs have collectively voted to close the summer transfer window before the start of the season from the 2018/19 campaign onward.

It means Premier League clubs will now not be able to register new players any later than 5pm on the Thursday before the start of the new season in mid-August.

The move came about as clubs complained about the unsettling nature of transfer sagas involving a number of players - Alexis Sanchez, Philippe Coutinho, Gylfi Sigurdsson - that carried on after the season had begun.

The hope is therefore that closing the window early and stopping clubs from buying players will serve to end such situations.

Re transfer window: classic Premier League thinking everyone else will follow suit. But closing window early will only help clubs overseas

— Ed Aarons (@ed_aarons) September 7, 2017

However, only the Premier League has brought the transfer deadline forward. Other countries in Europe - Spain, Italy, France, Germany etc - will still, for the time being at least, go by the FIFA calendar that sees European transfer window close at the end of August/start of September.

It means that had the early Premier League deadline been in effect this summer, Barcelona would still have been to chase and unsettle Coutinho as they did.

Had the Catalans been able to prise the Brazilian away, Liverpool would have had the added blow of not then being able to sign any replacements.