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Bombas make socks, slippers, tees and underwear made with the highest quality materials. Press 1 for comfort, 2 for style, 3 for donation. You chose style. Bombas is styles for whatever you enjoy. You can run in Bombas, lounge in Bombas, dress them up, dress them down, but always give back in Bombas because with every item purchased, another is donated. Bombas Comfort. Worth calling for. Go to bombas.com audio and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O-M B A S.com and use code audio. The Athletic FC Hi, it's Adam Leventhal, senior broadcaster and writer from the Athletic. And I've always wanted to do something like this. Previously on Anatomy of a Transfer. It's a roller coaster. There's so many ups and downs. The transfer world is crazy. It's tumultuous, it's wild. Things can really change on an hourly basis. That's my job, to create a situation where everybody feels like they're getting 70% of what they want. It was literally one day you're at a football club, the next day you're the other end of the country and you're signing elsewhere. So we covered a lot about the world of transfers in that first edition in 2025. But this special episode of the Athletic FC podcast is something a little bit different. You have been put in control. We ask subscribers of the Athletic, what is the one thing that you've always wanted to know about how the transfer business works? Do agents fees count against psr? When a player Goes on strike, do they still get paid? What proportion of transfer fees is typically paid as a lump sum nowadays? How much tapping up is tolerated when it comes to a fee? How do clubs actually make a bid? As you can hear, there are a lot hundreds of questions via comments and emails and it was my pledge to you to get you some answers from the people in the know. It's a good question actually. We can call it the ping pong game. Maybe sometimes people don't realise everything that goes into the recruitment side of bringing players in. Many journalists now have become very, very, very famous, probably the most famous figures in football and the transfer window via the transfer market. Yeah, but you often hear funny stories about exotic clauses along the way. We'll also divert to five other continents for some transfer trends. Where I think that helps us is we're now competing with the rest of the global market. Maybe sometimes they will pre stay in Brazil, but when the big clubs come, it's impossible. Now there is a, there is a brand, there is a made in Morocco brand. So I think so we need to open the mind to Europe. Some of these boys get paid really, really well. Kind of shocked at what I hear. This is Anatomy of a Transfer. Your questions answered and I've got a plane to catch. Well, the noise that you can hear around me is the sound of transfer negotiations happening in real time. Scouts, heads of recruitment, sporting directors, agents, all speaking the language of player trading. I'm in the Spanish city of Malaga in a conference suite at a swish hotel at an industry event put on by a company called Transfer Room, an online platform used by clubs around the world to facilitate moves from club to club. And part of their offering are deal days like this where representatives from clubs gather and they have 15 minute speed dating style meetings. Sometimes just to network, sometimes just to gather information, but more often than not because they want to do a deal with another club. So I am surrounded by people in the know working in the market as we speak in this January transfer window. So they are the perfect people to answer the questions that you have asked. First up, let's speak to this guy. Kyle Fletcher, Chief Scout, AFC Bournemouth. A former Premier League player. 20 years ago he was on the losing side in an FA cup final for West Ham when Steven Gerrard dominated. Oh. Oh, goodness me, what a strike. This window. He saw Bournemouth's star name depart. Breaking transfer news. Manchester City are closing in on a full agreement to sign Antoine Semenya. We understand the deal is for £64 million. Antoine Simeg. Well, if it is to be goodbye. What a way for him to sign up. I've enjoyed my time. It's kind of sad it's ended like this, but it's also another chapter in my journey as well. Do you always sort of prepare for the possibility when you are one of the smaller clubs that one of your big guns is going to go, and then you have to make sure that you reinvest and also make sure that the squad's quality level doesn't drop too much? I think you always have one eye on succession planning because, you know, football can change so quickly and things move so sharply. With teams being able to spend a good amount of money these days, we need to be prepared not only for the next window, but probably the next two windows going forward, maybe even three windows with how players are doing. If they're doing well, then there's always going to be interest, but also that you might get opportunities to improve the squad. So you're always looking further ahead than the actual next window that comes along. How challenging is it as a role to know that you've got this moving organism that could change at any time and you're going to have to have the next cab on the rank ready to go? Almost, yeah. I think it's the way the world is today. Such a small world in terms of coverage. There's no real kind of players that kind of go under the radar anymore, as there was maybe a number of years ago. So it is difficult. It's enjoyable. Definitely thinking and looking to find that talent, and when you see them come into the club and obviously do well, then that's very rewarding. But I think it's always difficult the way football is, and especially in England with the Premier League, it's so competitive and so demanding that, you know, there's obviously a lot of pressure to get things right. Let me ask you some of the questions that people have sent in. So Brad west has asked, why does it take so much time for transfers to actually go through? Is it brinkmanship? Is it games being played? What is it for you? Yeah, I think sometimes it's just circumstance. Do you know what I mean? It could be things that clubs need their players to play in certain games, the negotiations kind of stall for a period and there's kind of no contact at all. And then someone kind of makes a move at the end of it, so everyone can kind of agree. Maybe sometimes people don't realize everything that goes into the recruitment side of bringing players in, in terms of, you know, when you're spending large Amounts of money. You want to make sure that you kind of don't let any stone go unturned, so to speak. And obviously there's so much competition these days from clubs all around Europe and around the world for these players. It just takes a little bit of time. You know, you speak to everyone here today within the recruitment side of a football club. They would always choose to take it a little bit longer and let it last a little bit longer, a little bit more drawn out, knowing that they make the right decision at the end of it, rather than rushing into something and having to worry about it at a later date. And that said, Ian N. And Paul T. Have asked, I want to know from the people that are actually there on the coal face what they really think about when it does go to deadline day and it's happening on deadline day. Do you actually think, why have we. Why have we left it this late? It's like me in the olden days at school, leaving my revision to the last minute. I knew I shouldn't have done it, but I did. I think what you generally find, and I would say the large majority of the clubs, all their work is if they're looking to bring a player in, all their work had been done a long time before. So everything's kind of done, completed. They've done all the due diligence and everything they need to do. And I think ultimately it would be down to the players or the agents or whatever or the other club that you're trying to buy from that will be slowing it down and leave it to the last minute. I think the actual clubs that are looking to recruit would have been well ahead of the game. But there are circumstances where things just suddenly come up last minute. Whether it's a team want to get a player in and then they need to create some money, so they want to look to move someone out and that player becomes available that you never thought was going to be available that might be one that really suits. One of the main things in the role or in the recruitment side is you just have to be adaptable. There's no perfect science to it. Nothing really kind of fits into a box. And so it goes like this. Step one, step two, step three, doesn't really happen like that. So you just have to adapt to however it comes. And I think the ultimate goal is if you get the right player for your club. That's the main thing at the end of the day, whether it takes six months or six hours. And last one, Western B says, how do I know If a transfer is good value, I don't think you ever really know until they come to your club how well they perform for your team, how much they can impact your first 11 or your squad. You could argue that the players that are going for 100 million, Declan rice, is that good value. You know, you look what he's brought to Arsenal kind of thing, and you would say, yeah, even though at the time 100 million with Eclan Trice, everyone would kind of think, well, that's far too much money. But if they bring a positivity and an improvement and push the boundaries of where you can get to in terms of your team, it's definitely going to be a success. And some players might do that for a year or a couple of years and then move on, and others might do that for 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years, maybe. There's different ways to measure success. It varies a lot. You like to get more successes than failures. Definitely. That's the aim, isn't it? Let's now get a quick view from North America, because change is on the horizon. There's the potential impact of the 2026 World cup, but when it comes to transfers, MLS is switching its calendar to match Europe from 2027, 28, and that's key. Here's Pat Onstad, Houston Dynamo president of soccer. Where I think that helps us is we're now competing with the rest of the global market. If Austria is number 10, is in the summer and we go after their player, they're much more likely to say, okay, we'll make the transfer now because they have, you know, 10 weeks to recover and try to go find another player, or they can develop someone in, but they're not taking the big risk. So I think for us, that will help. It'll also help in the free agent market. And then the other piece for us is we're also, if we want to become a selling league, which we're working really hard at, our commissioners encouraged the league to do that and the teams to do that and ourselves actually have had some success. But we're. We're selling, you know, either in the summer of our seasons, and for a lot of clubs, that's a disaster as well. You're selling your best player, and at times that's a shorter window. So when we make the sale, we don't have any time to recover. It's after a window's close from the US to Denmark. No, don't worry, I'm not going into politics on this one. We're going to hear from Adain, who once played in the Premier League. Mercer. For Beck, this is a great chance for Micklebeck and he's taken it. Super finish. Micklebeck and Borough are in the lead. Mikkel Beck, former FOOTBALL player and since 21 years now working as a football agent. How do you compare the two lives that you've had? Well, I mean, of course as a football player, you're in charge of basically your own destiny. It's you who plays. If you want to make it, you have to do well. But as an agent, you help players. At the end of the day, when the game starts, it's not you playing as them and you want, of course, the best for them, but you're not really 100% in charge. So I would say that's probably the biggest difference. Now, I don't know what your experience of it is, but on the whole, the view of agents is never that positive. Yeah, I mean, it's been like that ever since I started. Even when I was a player, when you talked about agents, there was always that kind of negative thinking about it. I knew what I was going into when I started as an agent. I knew I was going into a business where maybe at the start I would be looked upon as one of the others. But it was then up to me to make my kind of way of working and hopefully also prove to people that, you know, an agent can actually be very good for you. I don't think the business can work without us. Of course, there are examples of, let's say, less trustworthy agents, but generally I think most of us are actually very harmless and actually just people that you should trust. And we want the best for our players. Del B asks, why do clubs pay agents fees? Well, why do you pay a lawyer if you need a lawyer's help? Or why do you pay an estate agent a fee when they have found the right apartment or house for you? Simply because you need expertise, help, and that help costs money. Of course it does. But then I guess some people would say, well, they've got recruitment teams, they've got scouts. Do they need agents? Yeah, yeah, but I'm playing devil's advocate. I know, I know. But let's be honest. At least I can only talk for myself. I am a football agent, I'm a players agent, so I'm actually there to make the best for the players, not for the clubs. There's also club agents, but I'm a player agent. And a recruitment team in a club would always have to do the best for the club. They work for the club, you know, but not always the best for the player itself, you know, himself. So, you know, the players need someone who works for them. Then the clubs need someone who works for them. And at the end of the day, we work hand in hand. They find the players they want, they come to us because they know we are looking after the players. And then, you know, they contact us and we meet up and hopefully in the end we find a deal. But that's why we are paid. But they're also paid. They're just paid a salary. We're paid a fee, but at the end of the day, it's a payment, you know. Nicholas Kay, are players ever the driving force behind a specific transfer? Basically, I want to go to that club, get me that club. Does that happen often? No, not that often. At least not in my company. But if you ask players where they want to go, they will always want to go to the best club in the world, but it's not possible for everyone to go there. But of course, sometimes in my discussions with the players before preparing a transfer, we sit down and we talk about where we see the player go, in what country does he suit, what country suits his playing style, and then we try and nail down some specific clubs where the player can see himself play. And then it's up to me to try and go out and contact those clubs and see if they would be interested. So, of course, players always have something to say. And at the end of the day, it's always the players that decides in the end, you know, you as an agent can only prepare something the best possible. But at the end of the day, it's the player who has the last word. Mohsin S asks about the future trends in the transfer market. Can it evolve much beyond what it is already? I mean, what we see nowadays is what we call more and more clubs are doing trading, which means they go for very, very young players with big potentials. Again, risky because they cost a lot of money, but they would rather go for them kind of players because they believe that, you know, at the end of the day they have a resale potential. So the trend today is basically go really young. And that's also why we of course need to find younger and younger players, because that's where the market lies. If you have a player today who's +30, it's tough to find a club for him because clubs will always say, but we can find a younger one. And we want younger ones because we can sell them on, because we need to make money. Let's get more on overseeing the career of prized top young talents and continue our tour of the continents with a view from South America. Hello, it's Frederico Moraes here from Promanager Sports. From Brazil, we manage around 100 players all over the world, especially in Europe. In Premier League, we have two right now, special ones. Brazil national team players, Jon, Pedro, Chelsea, Savinho, Man City. Happy that they are doing a very good job in England. And let's see what happens this season. What is the transfer market and the view on the transfer market like in Brazil? Yeah, Brazil, it's a country that normally sell players, you know, abroad. Now our league is very competitive. The clubs are becoming clubs, owner clubs as well. So it's getting more difficult to sell the players. But at the end of the day, Brazil is a country that the priority is to sell players. And I think it will continue like this. Yeah. Do you ever see a time when Brazil can say no? When a big club like, you know, Real Madrid or Chelsea or wherever come and say we're going to pay, will they ever be able to say no? Or is that just part of the way of life? No, I don't think. I don't think it will happen in this way. When this kind of clubs like Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, they come, it's also a dream for the players to go. So I think that this will not happen with this kind of clubs. Maybe for medium clubs with the expectation of financial expectation of the player, maybe sometimes they will prefer to stay in Brazil than go to Europe, but when the big clubs come, it's impossible. And tell me about the market between the South American countries, because is it very much we stay within our country or is there a lot of trading between the countries? Brazil gets a lot of players from South America, from Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador. But it's a country that don't sell too many players to those countries. It's more difficult, especially because Brazil has money now, so they are more able to buy players and not sell. Coming up, we'll speak to the only female sporting director working in the men's game in football like it is in life, right? Yeah. You have to depend on someone that remembers you and believes in you. And we'll also speak to another agent who encountered tragedy in 2025. 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Your questions answered. And now we're heading to Africa which provided one of the subplots of this window. Afcon in Morocco. Put aside the chaos of the final against Senegal and Morocco are a country making a mark. Semi finalists at the last World cup co hosts in 2030 under 20 world championship. Hello, my name is Yousef Debar. I'm the General Director of Widad Athletic Club. Widad are Morocco's most successful club and featured at a supercharged Club World cup in the US in 2025. Since then, champions League winner Hakim Ziyech has joined the ranks mixing experience with a youth focused strategy. From a transfer perspective, there is of course there is a momentum for Morocco in the global football map. As you said with the Afghan happening, also the World cup and maybe we will organize also the Club World cup in 2029. We really leveraged a lot the Club World cup that we played because some players would not maybe have chosen Morocco to come to play but with the club World cup, we were able to attract them and we continue surfing this. This wave. And there is a momentum now. You know that Morocco has won the World cup for the under 20. And then now there is a. There is a brand, There is a Made in Morocco brand that is beginning to establish out there. You know, you had the Made in Brazil, the Made in France, now we have the Made in Morocco. So now there is a new project led by the federation, the salaries of the youth coaches of the directors of youth football in order to do what we call the massification of the production of young players. So the best is yet to come. Speaking of making an impact. Elena Costa. Good to see you. Good to see you too. How are you? Well, I'm okay. Busy on this transfer window. So that is Elena Costa, sporting director at Portugal's Estoril. What's it like being in the. In the middle of a transfer window? Is it. You know your phone popping all the time? Yes, that's why I put it on silent mode. Yeah, all the time. Messages, phone phone calls, everyone trying to get in touch with you, agents, sometimes even players wanted to know how is it Everything but the majority, it's the contact 1v1 with the clubs and agents. And of course the ownership is always expecting results and results mean sales. So it's dealing with all that daily basis. But I sleep very well on the evening, so that's the good part. Costa is a trailblazer. Twelve years ago, she was the first female coach in the men's game in France. She went on to become a key recruitment figure at other European clubs, including Eintracht Frankfurt, when Oliver Glasner won the Europa League before joining Crystal Palace. Now she's the first female sporting director in the men's game. Well, I think it's a consequence of all the other things I've done in my past since coaching. First the coaching side opened the door for a scouting side on the men's world, and then scouting to chief scout, chief scouts to sporting director. So this is a very small world. Football, football clubs, everyone knows everyone and it's like a connection that you build and someone has to always remember about you and believes in you. I don't think it has any impact right now in my life, but of course I know it's important to open doors as well, but it's also a responsibility because it has to work, otherwise it won't open doors anyway. What is it like being the. The sporting director of Estoril, being a team which is a respected team? In Portugal, but in the grand scheme of things, it's outside the big five leagues, which is often talked about. How challenging is the job? Really challenging if. If you're able to. Can be a 24, 7 job, naturally, without any effort. I like this adrenaline. You have to manage everything, everything in the club, building the team and buying someone or signing someone. But there's also other things that you don't see, like hiring the doctor, the physiotherapist, managing the grass, managing the budget with all the needs that the club have. And of course, Club Estudil has a really, I can't say a tiny budget, so you have to be really strict on that. So we have to develop young players, sell players, so it's quite good. I'm enjoying a lot and this is my challenge right now. Hi there, it's Chris Weatherspoon, the Athletics first dedicated football finance rider. Adam has tasked me with answering a couple of the questions you sent in about transfers, mainly the ones that involve maths, which he's a bit rubbish at. So, without further ado, John W Asks, can anyone put into layman's language the SCR transitional process and how relevant it is to the January transfer window? John's obviously talking about the Premier League moving from profit and sustainability rules to squad cost rules, which come into operation next season. And the honest answer is that for quite a few clubs, it doesn't really make too much of a difference. Nine out of the Premier League's 20 clubs are currently subject to UEFA squad cost rules already, and that has a lower limit than the Premier League for the other 11. They do need to adjust to the new regime, but the fines that might be meted out under the new squad cost regime, the Premier League isn't going to bring those in until the season after, so clubs have even longer to get their house in order. So, in terms of how it impacts the current window, clubs will have to think ahead, but for a lot of them, it's not too pressing a concern. The real issue is going to come further down the line when the clubs at the top who earn the highest revenues will be able to spend a lot more on their spending scored than the clubs down the bottom, as the rule is tethered directly to how much a club earns. Martin W. Asks, do agent fees count for PSR purposes? And the answer is a resounding yes. Within the PSR rules, intermediary fees are explicitly mentioned. When we talk about amortization, people often think we're just talking about transfer fees, but we're actually talking about agent fees as well. So yes, when we talk about PSR rules, agent fees are absolutely included. Corey E asks, how much leeway do clubs have in how they amortize those transferring agent fees? The answer? It's a bit of a nuanced one, but the easiest answer is to say not too much. Generally, clubs amortize a player's transfer fee over the length of his contract. Say they sign a 40 million pound player over four years, they'll advertise it at 10 million pounds a year. Now, there have been instances in the past of clubs trying to, to maneuver that Derby county famously tried to adjust their accounting policies so they could change the way amortization hit the books and they weren't allowed to do that. So the truth is, how much leeway do they have? Not all that much. And there we have it. I hope that helps. And now back to Adam in Spain. If you can just say your name and your role. So, Luca Hodges, Ramon, FIFA licensed agent at CMG Sports, based in London. And for people who don't know, actually, when you say a FIFA licensed agent, what does that actually mean? Sure. Essentially it means I've taken the exam to be qualified as a licensed agent, which FIFA obviously brought in. Previously, they'd taken away the necessity to pass an exam or there was not a bar to entry, if you like, set by FIFA. And now they've reintroduced an exam and the requirement to have the exam to be recognized as a licensed agent, to then operate as an agent and be able to conduct deals and speak to clubs. Technically, under the regulations, if you're not licensed, you aren't allowed to operate and conduct deals with clubs. Officially. Technically, you said. I say technically and officially because there are still peripheral people that exist. There's still agents who operate on the periphery, as you say, or behind the scenes who haven't passed the exam. It was a necessary step to bring in a bar to entry, to bring in some form of qualification, to be honest, because I think being an agent is a skilled profession and needs to be recognized as such. It's interesting that you, you refer to it as a skilled profession. The image and the perception of agents is far different. It's sort of, well, wheeler dealers, wheeler dealers and a pretty negative perspective in the grand scheme of things. People will say, oh, why, why do we even need agents and things like that. Why are you so necessary? I think agents have long been part of the football ecosystem. I think obviously the negative perception of agents, I'm not saying it's unwarranted in certain times. But I also think that the good work that goes on, particularly behind the scenes in terms of the management of players, learning how to navigate a very complex industry where you have multi million, multi billion pound corporations trying to obviously make the most of the assets that they have, which are football players. But I think beyond the commercial element and the transactional element, there's also that human element in which a lot of agents have very good relationships with their players. Let me ask you some questions that have been sent in by subscribers. Trevor Bowen, he asks what's the typical percentage that an agent gets? Is that, is that set in stone? Yeah, obviously FIFA tried to introduce a cap, which is currently still under dispute and eventually we will have a ruling from the ECJ terms of whether a cap is introduced or not. But at the moment a very typical percentage that you'll see is 5 to 10% of a player's gross earnings. Another one in. And this is also on how much money you're making, which everyone seems to be worried about. Do you have a monthly retainer in addition to that percentage that you will get for transfer fees or contract renewals? Yeah, so listen, we've never charged a monthly retainer. It's not something I've really heard about in the industry. I think one thing to make clear is actually that agents don't charge players in the sense of you don't pay a fee to sign up for an agency, you don't pay a monthly retainer to be part of an agency. And actually rarely do players pay agents directly. This question has come in from a couple of people, amongst them Mark O, David D as well. Agents and clubs using the media for leverage. Tell me, how do you, how do you manage that relationship? I think everyone knows that happens from every side. I think clubs, agents, individuals at clubs, the media, obviously many journalists now have become very, very, very famous, probably the most famous figures in football and the transfer window via the transfer market and, and the news that generates. So I think it's used obviously for the interest normally of depending on what side it comes from, but from agents normally for the interest of the player, to promote the player, to try and generate interest. And obviously it can sometimes benefit, but it can also sometimes hinder a transfer because you have to be very careful about how you present that information and the timing at which you present the information. Because I think the most important thing as an agent is you prioritize the best deal possible happening for your player and that has to always be at the center of everything because sometimes news being Leaked isn't actually beneficial to that deal and it'd be remiss of me not to, to mention what you have been through recently. Just explain what happened with, with one of your players for people who aren't. Aren't aware. Yeah. So one of my players, Billy Viger, who tragically passed away last year, September 2025, playing for Chichester. He'd been a product of the Arsenal academy system, previously playing in Grassroots, scouted like so many of the young players from Grassroots to Arsenal and then like so many young players had different experiences in the football pyramid. Going to Derby, having to then go on loan to non league to Eastbourne Borough and then dropping into that non league system permanently to try and make his way back up. He was one of the first players I actually signed, one of the top youth prospects. I first signed when he was at Arsenal, who was really highly rated, scoring goals in his under 16 and under 15 year at Arsenal and just got to know the family really well. So when you, I guess, experience something like that, it puts things into perspective as well of a lot of things become almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things when we're talking about obviously the importance of big contracts and the high pressure of, of deals in football and everything like that. But actually you go back to the human element of it and, and essentially how can someone doing something they love pass away because of factors that were outside of. Of his control? It didn't, it wasn't even due to a collision on the pitch, obviously. He clashed with a unsafe perimeter off the pitch, a concrete wall which was surrounding the pitch. So really, I mean, all I can say is what a fantastic young man that he was. Family, an incredible family. So loving and the way they've been able to, to try and handle what's happened as credit to them as people and, and me as an, as an agent. That's where my, I feel my duty of care goes beyond the field of play. A few like, and it's about supporting them still and just supporting each other to be honest, because I always say they've supported me as much as I've supported them. But that's, I guess a good example of where again, you have a relationship that just goes way beyond football. Next on Anatomy of a Transfer. Your questions answered. We talk loans. My mum and dad basically banned me from coming back up. I had to learn to live on my own two feet down in big smoke, which was really hard and quite daunting. And the strange things that pop up in the paperwork. Some players can be very very particular about the particular box that they want to have. Think Verizon is expensive? Think again. Anyone can bring their AT and T or T Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. So bring us your bill. Walk in, run in, pogo sticking, teleport if you can ride on the back of a rollerblading yak or fly in on the wings of a majestic falcon. Any way, you can bring your AT and T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network based on root metrics Best Overall Mobile Network Performance US Second Half 2025 all rights reserved. Must provide very recent postpaid consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? 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This is Anatomy of a Transfer Getting your questions answered and I'm back in the cold and grey of the UK now in Hertfordshire just outside London to meet two sports lawyers, the co founders of a company called Three Points Law. First up, there's Simon Leaf. Worked on some of the biggest transfer deals over the last 15 years or so. Got experience working across the Premier League, the Championship and some of the biggest clubs in Europe as well. So we've done deals opposite all of the big six clubs, the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, psg, we've done lots of work in North America and South America and more recently, plenty of work in the Middle east as well. And alongside Simon is Tom Murray. Often something can look like you've got a really good deal. We've got this guy for £10 million and he's amazing. But if you're paying £250,000 a week to that guy. So one thing always to consider is not just what the transfer fee is, but what is the overall cost of that package to your club. Let's get stuck into the questions. Tom, just give us the definition of why we have a transfer fee. This is from James H. Yeah, sure. So a transfer fee is primarily to compensate a club for the loss that they suffer. So I think you're going to be playing for me for the next two years. I then lose your services for the next two years and therefore I want to be paid something to compensate me for that loss. It also enables the transferring club to be able to buy someone else in their place, but it's not a legal requirement. So clubs could allow people to leave for free if they want to, and sometimes they do by simply terminating their contracts and allowing them to join another club. This one's from Daryl J. Who says, I'd love more clarity on transfer sell on clauses. Is it more common now for it to be stipulated that it's a percentage on the profit rather than the whole amount, because that lowers the risk? It genuinely depends on the bargaining strength of each of the clubs and what can be negotiated. The clubs that are owed money, are they entitled to get it there and then? Yeah, the idea is that they get paid pretty quickly on the back of the deal. There are situations where you may bring in the former club to ask them to accept something over time, because we can be talking about particularly large amounts. FIFA are pretty clear on what the default position is. These clubs need to be paid and they need to be paid quickly. And ultimately they have the power to take steps against clubs that don't pay the amounts that are due. Super Mick Arteta. It's not the real one, it's another one. And Sam O have asked about some exotic clauses that have been put into players contracts. Yeah, well, you often hear funny stories about exotic clauses. I remember Luis Suarez famously had a no biting clause in his Barcelona contract. I doubt whether that was actually included, but, I mean, other clubs will include quite interesting clauses, for example, to learn the local language. So Lionel Messi famously had one to Land Catalan. And we've seen that with our own eyes. Those causes do exist. We've also seen things like buyout and release clauses, which is when a club will say, look, you can pay a certain fee and you can terminate your contract early if you have another club agree to pay a fee for you. However, that club can't be one of our local rivals. So Liverpool might say, look, you can terminate your contract for 40 million, but not if the club is Manchester United or Everton. A lot of them are to do with accommodation or travel. So arranging flights for the. For the player and their family often. Or hospitality boxes. Some players can be very, very particular about the particular box that they want to have. There's often funny stories where one player is leaving, the other players are thinking, well, I'd like to have his hospitality box. We worked in a Qatari transfer a few years ago and the player had an injury to his left knee. We got sent through the playing contract and it was all in Arabic. We got the contract translated and the clause said, if the player has any injury to his left knee, he has to not only pay back all of the money that's been paid to him, but also pay forward for any future fee that would have been paid to him. Obviously, we took that clause out and we didn't go ahead of that transfer in the end, but, yeah, that's the type of flavour of clauses we sometimes see. So Dominic A asks, quite simply, what does it mean when a transfer fee is undisclosed and how is it decided that a fee is undisclosed rather than published? I mean, the short answer is it's down to the clubs themselves. So if the clubs don't want to publish the fee, then they don't have to, at least to the public. There'll still be others beyond the people involved in the deal that may know what the number is because of the fact it may need to be disclosed to the FA or UEFA or to others. But it's important to remember there are certain clubs that are under greater obligation to disclose, so particularly clubs that are listed on public exchanges and stock markets. So you think of Man United being the obvious one listed in New York, they will have to disclose more to their shareholders. If you're a selling club, often you've then got to go back to the market to try and find another player. And if the market knows that you've just received a huge amount from the sale of your own player, then they might start asking and trying to bid up the price. Often the agreements themselves will have a confidentiality clause that is meant to stop those in the know from discussing the numbers, or at least if they are going to discuss the numbers, then it's a kind of jointly agreed number that is, dare I say, leaked or finds its way into the press rather than, you know, one club saying it was 30 and the other club saying it was 15. From Gerry H. Are transfers paid as a lump sum? Generally speaking, fees would be paid over the course of three or four years, sometimes even longer. Mainly I suspect because of cash flow management. And these clubs are now very kind of complex businesses and ultimately they may only have a limited amount of cash available at that particular point in time and they want to spread the payments over that period. So Michael V asks an interesting one about loans with obligations, also with options as well. At what point are players obliged to join and is everything agreed before that initial loan occurs? One way is that everything is agreed up front. So we have a pre agreement between the host club, the loan club and the player. And here the playing contract with the loan club on a permanent basis is agreed at the time. So you'll say in a year's time or in six months time, if we exercise this option, you will play for us on this basis for this salary and these will be your bonuses. The other way this can be done is to have an agreement in advance between the two clubs. So the host club and the loan club, where they say, look, you have a right to acquire this player's registration for a certain fee. However, your ability to exercise that right is dependent on the player's agreement to personal terms. Now, speaking of loan deals, let's head back to the warmth of Malaga now. Peter Ramage from Newcastle United. Current rules. The assistant loans manager. How is a loan sorted out in the most sort of basic terms? Who comes to who? Good question. I often believe it's the players that source the loans because they perform. If they're not performing, then nobody's going to pick the phone up for them. That then potentially will lead to phone calls to not just obviously myself and Shola Ami Obi, who's who leads the department, but all football kind of people within the club. You know, the manager might get a call asking about a player. The assistant managers, the, the coaches in the academy, the academy director, everybody that's kind of been involved in football will get a phone call from somebody and you know, it'll come to us. We'll try and navigate through all the, the pleasantries of it and then see if it's, it's, if it's the right fit for, for the player and for the club. So what happens once the player is out on loan? How much monitoring do you do? You do. It's extensive. We have a team now in the loans department consisting of six. There's myself and Shola. From the football perspective, we've got an analyst who will help with the data side of things. We have a loan psychologist, loans physio and a loan sports scientist who will help support the player but also support the club. We'll have try and have at least one checkpoint a week with the player via a WhatsApp message, Zoom call, phone call or even a visit as well. Obviously we'll go out and watch the games and make sure that we're checking with them and see how they're adapting in the senior environment. Also, part of the plan might be to just leave the player alone. Sometimes we will let them know that, sometimes we won't. It'll be subconscious that we just kind of withdraw our support for them to learn and understand what it takes to be a professional footballer. We talk about the parent club. It's a parental relationship you almost have with those players, isn't it? Being an ex professional footballer in this role is quite key because I faced this when I left Newcastle at 24 and I went down to London and signed for QPR. I was going up and down the roads every other week or every week. My mum and dad basically banned me from coming back up. I had to learn to live on my own two feet down in the big smoke, which was really hard and quite daunting. But I think that helped me. It was probably painful for my mum and dad to see their boy struggling down in London, but this is where I try and draw upon the experience to be able to help the players. Okay, so I've come back inside to the main room here in Malaga and I've tracked down someone who's in a good position to answer a range of your questions. Mathieu Bader, former player in France, Belgium and Germany turned agent and now technical director of Europa League club Youngboys from Bern in Switzerland. Alejandro S. Says. Why does the the bidding process for a player takes so long? It's a good question actually. We can call it the ping pong game. Yeah. But it's in fact it's all about sometime about strategy. Even if you know a little bit where you're going to ending. Yeah, it's all about a strategy for both sides and the end everyone try to get either more or less, but it's not always the case. It can be Also faster. It happens sometimes, but most of the time, yeah, it's all about a strategy over days, weeks until the deal is done. This question's from Terry M. If a player goes on strike, do they still get paid wages? Yep. Yep. Your face tells me how much you would like that or no. But from an agent's point of view, I guess you could. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're thinking of your in your previous life, would you sometimes suggest to a player go on strike because we need to get you out of there and that's the only way to do it. I always say that it's definitely not the best solution. But of course at the end is a people business before a transfer it's a lot of emotions, sometimes adrenaline. So as a club now you have to be ready to face some issues. It can happen like in life in general. You know, it's not always come an easy story. It can be also sometimes with up and down. But at the end of the day I think club a player and his agent can find solutions at one point. And one other question. In the past, especially in England, the phrase tapping up was used and clubs would complain. You know that club has been tapping up our player. So many people have asked Keith M, Elliot W, James H, Jake R about tapping up and why it's almost tolerated now that it's part of the transfer environment. So clubs very rarely complain because they know that themselves they'll be trying to facilitate a deal behind the scenes as well. Is that how the market works now that clubs will use agents to ensure that they know a player will come if they put the bid club to club in at some point? Yeah, I think even if a club complain, I mean nowadays this is part of the business as a club you need the more information possible before a transfer. That's why there are agents and that's the market. It goes the market and that's my opinion important to respect anyway the rules. But also before transfer you as a club you need to collect the most information you can. In the final part, what is it like for a player heading into the world of recruitment? Very overwhelming in all honesty. How do you market one of your squad to another club? So we've got like a brochure that we would send out to a lot of the clubs that we've got relationships with and it just highlights the situation of each player. And we cover two more continents Japanese people, so they don't like the negotiation. The issues we have is financially we just can't compete with a lot of the other countries. This is the final part of Anatomy of a Transfer. Your questions answered. And we've got some audio air miles to get through as promised, two more continents to cover. Let's get a take from Asia first with Teho Ando, sporting director of Gamba Osaka from Japan. Do you see that European clubs want to buy from that market in in particular the Asia Pacific market? Yeah. Recently. So South Korea and China, also Thailand, their market is getting better. And so also we always watch the Zeya match and the players and them. So we hire the player from Asia and then we want to bring the player to the Europe. Yeah, it's very good cycle for the Asia. Most of Japanese players, they always want to go to the Europe and they want to get the success in Europe. And many Japanese players have hit the heights in the Premier League in particular. And it's the Japanese international captain who steps forward for Liverpool. What a touch from Kaoru Matoba. Is he in Mitoma? Oh, it's wonderful. From Karuvatoma. So Japanese players are popular but according to Teo Ando cultural differences have had an impact in the market. We have a problem. We don't sell the player with a big value. It's problem for us Japanese people. So they don't like the negotiation. Yeah. Because they want to send a player to Europe. It's okay. It's okay. And it's very, very low value because European club. So they think Japan players is a very good price. Yes. It's so problem for us because we needed to develop new young talent and we spend that money to the academy. But yes, we don't have money enough. Yeah. So how do you change that in terms of negotiating and how do you change that for the future? How do you make sure that Japanese talent is bought for the right value? So I think so we need to open the mind to Europe. So yes, our country is Ireland because our mentality is very close, very domestic. So I'm 44 years, so new generation. So we will open the new door to the world. And we are starting the negotiation with the European crop. And also agents via Belgian sister club Union Saint Giloise. Japanese international Kara Matoma ended up at Brighton who have a great reputation for bringing players in but also moving players on for profit. Gordon Grier and I'm the pathway development manager for Brighton Hove Albion. There is so much attention on the transfer market of, you know, new is exciting, is different, is going to make all the difference. But selling a player is a challenge in itself, isn't it? How do you do that? Yeah, I think once the club knows that a player is maybe not going to impact the first team, then it's about giving them the best opportunity to maximise their potential, but also our business potential. And what we would do is put them in a situation where they're maybe on loan at a club that suits their game model or their physicality or their technical ability and then hopefully where they're going to play well and then we'll drive the value and then hopefully at the end of that season there's a few clubs that are interested and we can sort of get an ideal world like a bidding war. And my role within that is to sort of market the players as best we can and then get it to a point where I would pass it then up to our sporting director to deal with the sell out. How do you market a player? To be honest with you, I think the players market themselves. I think the loans, the platform. So we've got like a brochure that we would send out to a lot of the clubs that we've got relationships with and it just highlights the situation of each player. So just giving them the information that that player is available for potential sale or a potential loan and reinforcing that in regular intervals so that they're still there and then the player does the rest of the work themselves and they deserve most of the credit, if I'm being honest with you, because they're playing well and you know, they're maximizing the potential essentially. So I'll loan with obligation or a loan with option would only be available for a player that we didn't feel was going to impact our first team. If we feel they're going to impact our first team, then there's no way that we would give another club the the option to buy our player or an obligation to buy our player. In terms of the most influential role in the transfer business, what do you think is now the most important role? That's a question that's coming from Paul G. The player. Yeah. See the performance. We always talk about performance. It's such a unique industry, football, that if you perform well, quite often there's big upside for that person or that player. So that's definitely for me that the most important factor in any transfer negotiations is how well the players playing. And the better he's playing, the more leverage the clubs have got and the more leverage the players got because there's more clubs at the table for that individual. What are your sort of fondest but also worst memories of transfers that you've experienced. I think obviously within a transfer window, there's a lot of unknowns. You don't know where you're going to be from day to day, never mind week to week, especially if you're targeting, let's say, or alone. You could be anywhere and you're waiting for that club to pick up the phone and you could literally pack your bag and go somewhere the next day. So it's really uncertain in time, but of course, once you get the opportunity that you've maybe dreamed about or whatever, then that's obviously amazing that you've got that opportunity. But within the window, until you're signed somewhere, you know, it's really uncertain. You don't know where you're going to be. It can be difficult for players to manage that process. Now we have one final continent to visit, Oceania, and this is the state of play in Australia. Hi, I'm Stan Leslie, former Premier League footballer, now turned football sporting director at Perth Glory Football Club. And yeah, things are going good. We'll try and scour players from wherever issues we have is. Financially, we just can't compete with a lot of the other countries. If you want to bring out a top player in his prime of his career, it's unlikely you're going to get him. So you either have to go for a player that's towards the end of his career and he's looking for a lifestyle change, family, and then you've got to work out whether there's still a bit of life left in him and there's a bit of hunger to want to do well, that he's got his reputation on the line and he's willing to do that and it doesn't always come off. Or the other way is you might look at just loaning a player that's gone to a big club that's not having the best of times and you're getting him for a kind of a bargain fee. The A league is condensing its marquee players to one only, and they're bringing in a hard cap. So basically that means that you're bringing in maybe one type of player like a Tom Lawrence calibre, and then the others, you're just not going to afford them. So you can forget about looking in the cdr, you can forget about looking at La Liga and you forget about looking at the Premier League, even championship. Where I'm looking a lot now is top of League two, League one. Some of these boys get paid really, really well. Kind of shocked. It's what I hear, but I think there's enough there in the League 1. It would suit our league and the type of profile. And you can bring over these guys at a good age so they can come over at the age of 26, 27. So we have to adjust now how we scout. We'll end where we started with another former player like Stan here at transfer room in Malaga. His former Middlesbrough midfielder Tommy Smith, who's now in the recruitment team at the club. He played in the Premier League with Huddersfield. Tommy, I've spoken to you. With the hubbub going on in the background, background, people connected to the transfer market, scouts and some agents and representatives from clubs, all in a speed dating setup. This is your first time. What has it been like? Very overwhelming, in all honesty. Yeah, listen, I've been fortunate enough to be invited today. I didn't really know what to expect. Every 15 minutes has provided me with different insights to how football clubs work and ultimately trying to provide myself with the best sort of ideas moving forward. Because my main job is to help Millersburg Football Club. If I can get any sort of information from other clubs to do that, that's what I'm here for. And from your point of view, having been a player very, very recently to now, stepping into the other side of it, where you see all the working parts that go into moving players from club to club, you've had a few transfers in, in your time. Does it make you appreciate it a little bit more that there's a lot of people working hard to make sure that the people at the centre of the game are in the right place at the right time? You know, all I've known all my life is Tommy Smith being the football player. And I think coming into this side of it now, it's a completely different world. As I say, there's a lot more stuff that goes on that you perhaps don't realise. I think when you're a football player, you're in a bubble of playing. You train, you play, you train, you play. Whereas coming out of it now and seeing the other side that comes with it, the contracts, the age agents, the loan managers, the sporting directors, there's a lot of stuff that goes on and it's certainly not as straightforward as you probably think as a player. I mean, I have countless conversations at my agent when I was a player about, you know, can you not get me to move there? Or what about that? Or what about that? And he would always say to me, oh, it's not as easy as that. And I'd sort of think as a player, well, why not? Surely it is. But you don't see that side of it. And I think now coming out the other side of it, I understand logistically sometimes it can be a little bit more difficult. So it's a new world, but it's one that for me is a new challenge, a new experience, and one that I'm really hopeful I can do well in. And that's all that any of the people that I've spoken to can really hope for, to do their best to try and build a winning team for the fans or support a player on the right path through their career. Thanks to all of them for being part of it, and especially to you for providing so many of the questions and helping guide the conversation. Let us know in the comments, your views on the transfer market and the answers that you got in this episode. Anatomy of the Transfer. Your questions answered was a special episode of the Athletic FC podcast, written and presented by me, Adam Leventhal. The producer was Jay Beale. Additional reporting from Michael Bailey and Chris Weatherspoon. Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now? Really? At a playground? Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers. 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