FIFA are expected to announce in the coming days that the 2020 summer transfer window will be allowed to open up to four weeks before the end of a national league’s campaign.
As things stand, the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A are all expected to resume their respective seasons this month. All three will cram the remaining fixtures into around six weeks to ensure they can be wrapped up by the end of July.
But with the final few rounds of the Champions League and Europa League then taking place in August and the start of 2020/21 pencilled in for some time in September it doesn’t leave very much time at all for transfer business in or out of clubs unless a concession is made.
According to RMC, FIFA will authorise domestic leagues to open their respective transfer windows up to four weeks before the season finishes and will communicate that decision this week.
That means the Premier League transfer window, for example, could be open for clubs to start doing business from the end of June, all while the season is still ongoing. Similar would also be true in Spain or Italy, while Germany’s could be open much sooner given the Bundesliga restarted in May.
The transfer window in France is actually already open given that the season was abandoned.
However, any players who join new clubs while 2019/20 is still being played will not be allowed to actually play until the 2020/21 campaign begins. Whether clubs will actually do deals, certainly high profile ones, when games are coming thick and fast, is another question entirely.
As for when the summer transfer window might close, RMC explains that the European leagues are in talks for the deadline to fall in unison, presumably even if it opens in each country a few days apart given the scheduling of the season.
FIFA will still allow a 12-week summer transfer window as normal, which – as a month delayed, is expected to see it remain open across Europe until the end of September/start of October.
For more from Jamie Spencer, follow him on Twitter and Facebook!
Let’