TRANSFER deadline day is guaranteed to bring drama, excitement . . . and disappointment as the hours tick by to 11pm.
Here, SunSport’s chief football reporter NEIL ASHTON talks to some of the players, agents, managers and sporting directors who have lived through this nerve-shredding day.
THE PLAYER – JAMES SCOWCROFT (Former Ipswich, Leicester and Crystal Palace striker)
I had been primed for a dream move to another club a couple of times during my career. Leicester to Crystal Palace and Leicester to Norwich both fell through on deadline day. I once thought I was going to Liverpool when I saw my name linked with them in the paper. Later I discovered my agent had planted it in there with a friendly journalist to boost my ego. It worked — at least until I found out!MSometimes chief executives get the blame. I’ve had managers phone me after a deal has fallen through to say the CEO “screwed up the paperwork”. Nobody believes it, it’s just an excuse. The hardest part is going into training the next day with the same club. It isn’t easy to walk in when you said bye to the lads the previous day.
THE CLUB SUPREMO – PETER STORRIE (Former Portsmouth chief executive)
I would struggle to sleep the night before. There is a lot of stuff flying around, a list of targets, a lot of potential options. I would be up early the next morning and would head straight to Portsmouth’s training ground to plan the day with the manager. The phone never stops ringing — it could be the manager with a tip to follow up, an agent offering a player or the chairman wanting to know how we were progressing. There are some good times when you get a deal over the line but there are always some major disappointments. It can leave you feeling very flat and very empty. It is a shattering day and it can shred nerves because time is so tight. The chairman would need to be on standby to approve deals and quite often they are completed without even seeing the player in person.
THE MANAGER – DAVID PLEAT (Former Tottenham manager and Spurs consultant)
I used to go and watch a player two or three times to make a decision. Now the managers don’t even bother to watch them live. It’s all getting very impersonal. I relied on my contacts I had built up over the years to tip me off about a player’s availability. That’s how we signed Dele Alli from MK Dons. We had word he was talking to other clubs and that’s when Daniel Levy made his move. It has been one of the smartest pieces of business in the club’s history.
THE MR TEN PER CENT - JONATHAN BARNETT (Agent for Stellar. Negotiated Gareth Bale’s world record-breaking £86million transfer to Real Madrid)
We are well organised so we don’t do the frantic running around you see from one-man bands on deadline day. The day is for them really. Negotiations with clients take place over weeks and because so much of our business is across Europe, it needs lawyers and accountants who are fluent in different languages. We don’t need to move players because we make a lot of money when our players stay with their clubs. We don’t panic. I’m very relaxed about it all these days. We are very successful at what we do, which is why I will be on the balcony of my villa in the south of France on deadline day.
THE SPORTING DIRECTOR - DAMIEN COMOLLI (Sold Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United and signed Luis Suarez for Liverpool)
It is a day that requires maximum concentration and focus. There is so much noise, so many distractions and so many deals being talked about that it can be easy to get side-tracked. The supporters get very excitable about signings but the executives have to detach themselves. There is so much at stake — reputations, money and results — that it is a critical period. It is an exciting day but also a very difficult one to be in an office doing deals with a deadline approaching in just a few hours.
THE SMALL PRINT - PREMIER LEAGUE REQUIREMENTS:
GENERAL REGISTRATION/TRANSFER REQUIREMENTS - To register a player, clubs have to send the Premier League all documents relating to the transfer, the transfer agreement, permission to work in the UK (if required), international clearance if transferring from abroad (International Transfer Certificate). For a player transferring from abroad, providing that the relevant papers have been submitted in time, the International Transfer Certificate can be received up to 75 minutes before kick-off for a player to be eligible.
From The Sun
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