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Amid the furore of Everton sending out a fan survey that included a question regarding how the supporters felt Sam Allardyce was doing, the manager was speaking to the Mirror about a topic that most fans hope he will not be addressing at Finch Farm at all this summer.
The Premier League made the decision to bring forward the closing day of the summer transfer window so that teams will not struggle with the disruption of transfers once the new season has begun.
Per FIFA regulations, the summer window has to be at least 12 weeks long, which then means it’ll open well before the traditional 1st June date. Here are the most important dates of the summer summarized.
- 13th May, 2018 - 2017-18 Premier League season ends
- 17th May, 2018 - Summer transfer window opens
- 28th May, 2018 - Pre-World Cup friendlies begin
- 9th June, 2018 - Pre-World Cup friendlies end
- 14th June, 2018 - World Cup 2018 begins
- 15th July, 2018 - World Cup 2018 ends
- 9th August, 2018 - Summer transfer window closes
- 10th August, 2018 - 2018-19 Premier League season begins
The chairmen of 14 clubs voted in favour, with five against and Burnley choosing to abstain. The five clubs who voted against were Crystal Palace, Manchester City, Manchester United, Swansea City and Watford FC.
Despite Bill Kenwright voting in favour of the amendment, Big Sam is unhappy about the change.
“From a personal point of view, as a manager who deals with it, yeah, I think the Premier League has shot itself in the foot.
“I think the difficulty for us is that other countries’ windows stay open a lot longer. I can’t understand that. You are giving them an advantage.
“It is always us who suffers in changes that are not beneficial to football in general.”
He goes on to add that with the other nations’ windows open until August 31st, there will continue to be a disruptive effect as players get poached.
“This summer the window will be even shorter anyway. There is very little business done during the World Cup finals, clubs tend to wait until afterwards. So how does that leave before the window shuts? About three weeks - that will be make it even more difficult, and give very little time to get business sorted.
“I thought the FIFA regulation was we had to fall in line in the same window, which is why our system got changed many years ago. But now they’ve decided other countries can shut their window earlier or later.
“Last year they stopped us getting emergency loans because we have to fall in line, but when it comes to the shutting of the window some can keep it open longer than others, I just find it very difficult to comprehend or understand.”
Allardyce’s frustration is understandable - there was an expectation that England would lead the way with changing the deadline and other nations would follow suit. While it has been talked about widely in Europe, it appears that hasn’t happened, at least not for the upcoming summer.