This Is the Silliest Season to Buy Into Transfer Rumors
If things were going according to plan, then European seasons would be in their home stretches right now. Liverpool, most likely, would be receiving repeated guards of honor after winning the Premier League title in record time. The Champions League would be featuring the first legs of the quarterfinals this week. And, as always, there would continue to be vociferous debate regarding the future destinations for Neymar and Paul Pogba and a host of other transfer speculation.
Well, that last part has thus far managed to evade the coronavirus pandemic shutdown and its wide-reaching web.
Transfer rumor season never dies. Ever. The moment the January window closes, it's time to ramp up the rumor mill for the summer one. Most media outlets engage in the nonsense and indulge to varying degrees–including this one. It's intoxicating. Sports fans–and soccer ones in particular–love what might happen, could happen or should happen. Some rumors have merit, others quite clearly do not. There's a mad libs game to be made featuring the kind of prolific blog prose such as, "(PLAYER) is linked to (TEAM A) because (COACH and PLAYER) once worked together at (TEAM B)."
It's all fun and games, it's often agent- and imagination-driven and it's mostly harmless. Except to engage in that kind of silly season circus during these most uncertain of times is downright foolish.
Simply put: Nobody knows anything right now. Nobody knows when leagues will return. Nobody knows when the summer transfer window will open. Nobody knows when expiring contracts will run out and already-agreed-upon contracts will truly begin. Nobody knows what the financial wasteland and landscape will ultimately look like when the worst of the pandemic is over. Nobody knows if they'll want to take their talents and families to countries where the virus outbreak has resulted in mass casualties. Nobody knows if clubs, even if they maintain the means, will be able to publicly justify spending tens of millions of pounds or euros on a single player after engaging in pay cuts, furloughs and government aid.
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To indulge the possibility of Neymar leaving PSG for either Barcelona or Real Madrid, or Pogba leaving Man United for Juventus or PSG, or an English club spending a nine-digit sum to bring Jadon Sancho home is to engage in utter fantasy right now. Perhaps that's what fans need when there's nothing else going on, and that's fair enough, but at least engage with a dose of reality.
"Who knows how the market is going to react to this? Who knows which clubs need to sell players?" Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told Sky Sports, before proclaiming that the rich clubs like Man United could be in position to exploit inefficiencies when the time comes.
As of now, it's impossible for anything tangible to be on the table. Most transfer rumors are bogus in regular times. Considering the current circumstances, lending credence to any of them right now is a futile exercise.
“In the short term I would say the transfer market this summer will not exist, it will collapse,” Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert told the New York Times. “Some agents will suddenly understand that they will have to work hard, or at least work; some leagues will understand that money is nothing that is coming automatically every month from heaven.”
The only thing known for sure right now is that player contracts and the summer window are effectively postponed, much like the matches that have been shelved indefinitely. FIFA on Tuesday approved plans for the extension of expiring contracts (whether it actually has the legal authority to do so remains dubious, but you'd expect most to adapt to the extraordinary circumstances without a fight, and a global pandemic certainly would qualify as a "force majeure" event) and for the delaying of the summer window.
Already agreed-upon contracts that were supposed to begin July 1, like Chelsea-bound Ajax star Hakim Ziyech's, for instance, won't start until the summer window opens, and that won't occur until the completion of the 2019-20 seasons. Players whose contracts or loans are due to expire on June 30, will remain with their clubs through the end of their respective seasons.
"Expiring player contracts usually end when the season ends, with a termination date that coincides with the end of the season," FIFA explained in its statement. "With the current suspension of play in most countries, it is now obvious that the current season will not end when people thought it would. Therefore, it is proposed that contracts be extended until such time that the season does actually end. This should be in line with the original intention of the parties when the contract was signed and should also preserve sporting integrity and stability.
"A similar principle applies to contracts due to begin when the new season starts, meaning the entry into force of such contracts is delayed until the next season actually does start."
It's entirely possible that not all leagues align with each other upon their return to action–the Bundesliga, for instance, is eyeing a return next month in matches behind closed doors, but that isn't feasible everywhere–which would make for another mess of a puzzle to piece together. At the very least, it's some direction at a time when planning specifics are hard to come by.
"With regard to transfer windows, again, it is necessary to adjust the normal regulatory position to the new factual circumstances," FIFA said. "Accordingly, FIFA will be flexible and will allow the relevant transfer windows to be moved so they fall between the end of the old season and the start of the new season. At the same time, FIFA will try to ensure, where possible, an overall level of coordination and will also bear in mind the need to protect the regularity, integrity and proper functioning of competitions, so that the sporting results of any competition are not unfairly disrupted."
Everyone is operating on the fly. This is an unprecedented time, and the ability to act as if everything is normal has effectively been rendered useless–even for transfer rumors and what should be the peak of silly season.
