Transfers: Behind the Scenes

            When most people see or hear about transfers, they think about who was traded, where they were traded to, and for how much. Most of the time, people don’t realize the time and effort that has gone into making the switch from all parties. First of all, the team that is looking to take in the player has most likely been researching the move for over a year in many cases. The club sends scouts that will watch practices and games of the player for a long time before even the player knows of their intentions. An individual club will often have a set list of target players based on their needs in certain positions or areas. These players are then watched and the list gets modified.

            Once a club has decided to pursue a certain player, they often will hire a middleman, or an agent that will approach the player and let them know that the club is interested. This isn’t really the negotiation stage, just a point where the player will tell if he has any real interest in the move or not, as clubs don’t want to negotiate and bid for a player that will just turn them down. Next, the clubs (agents) will negotiate along with the player to fit the needs of all three parties. What the player wants out of the move, what the selling club wants for him, and what the pursuing club is able to do to fulfill both of those needs is discussed. Once the negotiation stage is reached, the transfer will most likely continue through all the way and few end beyond here. So really, if a player shows enough of an interest and has reasonable needs, clubs will often do what they need to in order to get the player if they have pursued him this far.

Most of what happens from there is just finalization, and the only real reason for the process to end before the trade would be an avoidance of fees or medical issues. First, the receiving club will have the player have a medical to check on his physical condition and hopefully weed out any problems that could be worse in the future. Unfortunately, the medical aspect is not in the control of the buying club which could be a problem should there be any medical issues. Finally, if everything checks out, the player will sign onto the new team for the negotiated price. Typically, this entire process could have taken a few years to complete, and only a couple players will be transferred out of one hundred that were initially scouted. There is obviously a lot of work and planning that goes into a transfer, which makes sense considering that these deals are potentially for millions of dollars.