Bruno Fernandes joined Manchester United in the winter transfer window. - Screen capture @ManUtd

  • The winter transfer window ends at 11.59 p.m. on Friday.
  • Again this year, few movements were noted on the transfer market.
  • Too long, rarely effective and very destabilizing for clubs, the question of the suppression of the winter market arises with insistence.

    • The big joy of this Friday morning: look at the calendar and realize that January 31 rhymes with the end of the winter transfer window. Not that we do not enjoy spending our days in your company feeding this good old mercato live, but it must be said what is, that it was long!

    Whole days of watchfulness to swallow phony rumor on phony rumor to, in the end, be ambiguous on the true-false transfer of Cédric Bakambu to Barça, it's cheap paid. Consequently, a question torments us: would it not be time to end this masquerade which has lasted only too long?

    "I prefer that everyone stays", Tuchel's request is clear https://t.co/kQzWVaScNp

    - 20 Minutes (@ 20Minutes) January 29, 2020

    All that for this…

    To be convinced, not complicated, just take a look at the accounting balance of winter balances. This year, the clubs of the five major European championships spent 770 million euros. It is roughly the same amount as in previous years, but compared to what is done during the summer, it is peanut. The 20-minute Maths Sup-Maths Spé unit calculated the summer / winter spending ratio and the report is relentless: over the last five seasons (summer and winter combined), the clubs have spent 24.824 billion euros. 21.264 billion in summer, 3.56 billion in winter, or only 14% of the total amount.

    This winter, we can hardly remember the transfers that caused a sensation. It's not very complicated, there is one: Bruno Fernandes at Manchester United for 55 million euros (+ 25 million bonus). For the rest, a lot of noise for not much, the winter transfer window being above all an adjustment market.

    A sort of catch-up for those who have dried up their vacation homework and find themselves forced to save the furniture by strengthening themselves in a rush. It is not for nothing that we have more (badly) chance of eating a meteorite on the muzzle than to succeed in a crazy move during the winter market. For the simple reason that clubs have no reason to give up their players who perform in the middle of the season.

    "It's criminal"

    If we were to rename this period, the most appropriate title would undoubtedly be "a lot of noise for nothing". Because while the agents heat the laptops to place their players, the clubs continue to work. But under what conditions ? “Everyone gets nervous from November, and until February, already railed Arsène Wenger in 2012. From coach to players through the club, this period makes things difficult. If it no longer existed, we could concentrate, we would know that there would be no other way to get there. "

    Vahid Halilhodžić: “I hope there will never be a winter transfer window again, this period of business, of embezzlement. Of all these things that allow some to take advantage of the situation. I hope they will ban it right away, it's outrageous. »Pic.twitter.com/gVaaCsaxOW

    - Actu Foot (@ActuFoot_) February 8, 2019

    More recently, in winter 2019, Vahid Halilhodzic released the sulfator. “We are playing a crucial moment in our season. This story with the transfer window completely destroyed three and a half months of work, the trainer stationed in Nantes got angry. I hope there will never be a winter transfer window again. This period of business, embezzlement, all these things ... The people who profit from the situation. I hope they will ban this right away, it's outrageous, it's criminal. "

    Infantino doesn't say no

    Still in France, Rudi Garcia campaigned for the establishment of “medical wild cards”. No more. "When we start a season, I don't see why we wouldn't go all the way with the same workforce," he explained recently. For clubs, this period rhymes mainly with instability because, fatally, the mental impact on the players can tarnish the atmosphere in a group. "We must remove this shit of winter transfer window, yelled the poet Bernard Lacombe in 2013 in L'Equipe . At one time or another, this period shakes you. Players cannot be insensitive to everything that is said. "

    This scolding of coaches is not unique to French grognards. And that, the boss of Fifa has understood. Gianni Infantino did not exclude the idea of ​​reforming the system. "The number of transfers during the winter period should be reduced," he said in February 2018. It is not acceptable to rebuild a team in the middle of winter. I don't like it when a regular player switches from one team to another in mid-season. ” And in summer, Italo-Switzerland said it was favorable to what is now being done in England, namely "a shortened transfer window", which closes its doors when the championship opens its own. Until then, let's count the hours that separate us from freedom. Courage friends, the ordeal is soon over.

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