How Premier League transfers really work in 2025 – and are rules being broken?

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Many of us have signed a footballer in our time.

We’ve approached their club, negotiated a fee, spoken to the player’s representatives, agreed personal terms, crossed our fingers for good news about the medical and finally completed the deal.

But while Football Manager and other simulators might offer a representation of how transfers would work if everyone stuck to the letter of the rules, in the real world, these moves effectively happen in reverse.

“It happens in the other direction,” an experienced football agent tells The Athletic. “I dare say there’s probably five per cent of clubs in the world that do it that (correct) way. The other 95 per cent always agree the player’s deal in advance, or certainly the majority of the player’s deal.

“Virtually no one is bidding for a player anymore without already knowing that they’re going to come to their football club, or have a strong interest in signing for that club.”

So, in a bid to demystify the process, here is a stage-by-stage breakdown of how a football transfer really happens in 2025, with the help of that agent and a former sporting director at a major UK club, who both wish to remain anonymous to protect relationships.

How the deal starts

Most clubs in the top levels of football now have large recruitment departments and extensive databases filled with research on players they may want to sign in future transfer windows.

When the time is right, the club aiming to do the buying make contact with the player’s representatives to assess the chances of getting a mooted move over the line.

“What has changed is that, historically, a lot of deals were very agent-led, because in the past agents probably had better networks than clubs,” says the agent. “Now, with the advent of data, clubs know a lot more players. I would say in the past, it used to be 80 per cent agent-led and 20 per cent club-led, whereas now I would say it’s 90 per cent club-led.”

Clubs used to rely on the networks of agents such as Eric Hall (Ben Radford/Allsport/Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

The sporting director we talked to says he has often been approached by agents in recent years proposing clients of theirs as possible signings, but that very few of those suggestions are taken further.

“I can’t think of any times where there’s been a player put to me that’s been better than the players on our shortlist, or that we didn’t already know was available,” he says. “Now and again, you might get the one put to you that you didn’t think would be feasible or didn’t think you could afford and that can be interesting but, nine times out of 10, the players put to you by agents are below the standard of the ones already on your shortlist.”

The buying club talks to the player

Clubs are not allowed to contact players who are under contract elsewhere, either directly or through their representatives, without written permission from the individual’s current employers, according to Premier League rules.

The exception to that is where clubs from another country can legally open negotiations from January in the year a player’s contract is due to expire about a free-agent move when it does run out, while the Premier League’s regulations say you can speak to targets from the third Saturday in May if their contract is up that summer.

In reality, though, clubs do negotiate terms with players or their representatives in private, often over deals that never come to fruition (because the club-to-club negotiations break down or the would-be destination team opt for other targets). This involves recruitment staff or sporting directors sounding out potential signings, usually via agents, to gauge their interest and assess possible costs.

The agent and sporting director explained to The Athletic that this goes unpunished because clubs rarely, if ever, flag up that it’s going on to the league — mainly because they are doing it too with players they are interested in. The Premier League has the power to investigate an illegal approach even if no complaint has been received, but any investigation would depend on enough information and evidence being available.

“Really, it’s the way it’s always worked,” says the agent. “Very occasionally, a club might complain about it if they’re going for promotion or trying to stay in a league and they think their player is being unsettled. But almost all of the time, they do nothing because they know they’re going to do the same thing themselves in the next transfer window, and people in glass houses can’t throw stones.”

The rules remain in place, but clubs don’t kick up a stink if they’re being broken, so governing bodies don’t sanction, and working around them has become accepted practice to help the transfer system run smoothly.

Much of the groundwork for any transfer is done before sporting directors at the buying clubs get fully involved, with a modern recruitment team’s responsibilities stretching beyond studying potential signings and compiling reports on them.

“They watch the players, then they will draw up their shortlist for a centre-forward, for example, and present that to me,” says the sporting director. “It will contain everything in terms of the possible cost of the deal, and they won’t present a player to me if they don’t know the player is interested — or at least think he might be interested.

“So at that stage, I will know that a player is interested, what the approximate salary is going to be and probably the approximate transfer fee. Even though nothing is finalised, I would say those presentations are usually accurate to about 85 or 90 per cent.”

Once sporting directors decide a deal is feasible and attractive, arrangements will usually be made to speak discreetly to the player. In most cases, the selling club will be aware of the general potential for somebody to leave due to conversations with their agent, but they are usually unaware of specific conversations between players and specific buyers.

The agent adds: “I’d say 90 per cent of the time, the player will have either a telephone conversation or face-to-face conversation with the manager (usually via video call), sporting director or both at the buying club.

“That chat will involve, ‘Where do you see me playing?’, ‘Where do you see the club going?’, all this kind of stuff, and often they are quite selfish conversations about what incentives are there for the player. Those conversations normally come weeks in advance — as soon as clubs know where they’re going to be next season (in terms of which division they will play in).

“But clubs will often have six or seven plates spinning for any one position. They might have the same conversations with six or seven players, then they will decide which one best suits them and best fits their budget. So a lot of the time, things won’t go any further than those conversations and no one will ever find out about them.”

Once those discussions are completed and a club has decided on their preferred target, the sporting director and the player’s agent will attempt to come to a deal in principle on personal terms — wages, bonuses, et cetera.

The buying club talks to the player’s current club

While, according to the rules, clubs should agree a transfer fee before the team doing the buying ever speak to the player involved, in 2025, the official bid is normally the final part of the process.

Clubs want a high level of confidence a deal can be completed before lodging a bid with the player’s current employers. And negotiations on transfer fees can sometimes be little more than a formality.

The player’s agent, in an effort to make a deal as smooth as possible, will often obtain an ‘asking price’ from a selling club to pass on to would-be buyers, so suitors will know roughly where to pitch their opening offer. Clubs, however, tend to take such information with a pinch of salt.

“They give us a figure, which is never right, because they want to have us interested,” says the sporting director. “It’s almost always a bit lower than the club actually want. To be honest, whenever I get a figure like that, I normally add about 15 per cent to try to get to a realistic figure.”

Negotiations over a fee can still involve much to and fro, especially if a club are reluctant sellers, or if more than one potential buyer is on the scene, at which point a bidding war can ensue. But even in those cases, a player may already have made a firm decision over where they would rather go.

Several clubs were keen on Ipswich striker Liam Delap this summer, but he made it clear he wanted to join Chelsea – and now has (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images)

The agent says: “Usually, we will say to any other clubs, ‘The player prefers to go somewhere else, but we’ll keep you updated’. Sometimes, if a club is especially reluctant to sell, players might take extreme action to try to force through a move. That may include refusing to train or play, or something less extreme.”

Matheus Nunes was an example of a player staying away from training when he looked to secure a move from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Manchester City in the summer 2023 window. Players who do that risk punishment from their clubs, most likely fines, but in almost every case the benefits of getting the sought-after move far outweigh the feasible sanctions.

“I have never encouraged a player to down tools,” says the agent. “I know some players and agents do it, but I’ve always thought that’s too much. You have to show some respect to the club that is paying the player’s wages.

“We do sometimes put in a transfer request and find a way to make that public, to apply a bit of pressure, but that is as far as I would ever go.”

The final stages

Once all the financial aspects are agreed, the final stage of a transfer is the medical.

Contrary to common belief, these do not provide a binary ‘pass-or-fail’ outcome. Instead, they are a series of tests designed to inform the buying club of any medical or fitness issues that might make their investment a greater risk.

Sometimes, though, the results that come back can lead to a transfer being renegotiated, or even cancelled altogether. In 2020, defender Nathan Ferguson’s move from West Bromwich Albion to Crystal Palace was called off, then revived on renegotiated terms, after his medical revealed knee issues.

A minor concern in these circumstances might result in the buying club seeking a reduced fee to reflect the added risk, while a bigger problem might see them pulling the plug altogether.

Usually though, the results provide an all-clear and the deal proceeds as agreed, completing a process that happens the opposite way around to how many fans would expect.

(Top photo: Osmancan Gurdogan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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