The Accountant: on the January transfer window

Darren Smith on the World Cup Effect, the Black Tuesday that never happened, how CR7 financed Burnley's latest acquisition, and the best of the rest.

Words: Darren Smith

No!… Not another Deane and Fjørtoft!? 

Unlike summer, with all its carefully planned squad building, January is typically regarded in football as the emergency window.

Winter’s movers and shakers are more likely to be those underperforming clubs in need of a lift. Perhaps a few new faces about the place rather than any great uptick in quality. They might also be those few clubs on the cusp of promotion who feel that one special signing, something short-term or a loan with an option to buy, will get them over the line.

However, this window was different. It was the first that followed a winter World Cup. Now, this is a tournament that traditionally inflates values. You get those under-the-radar players from secondary markets or elsewhere performing on the world stage. And there’s a history of the big league clubs noticing such performances, eyeing a bargain, and hoping their unearthed gem will make the step up. This is often a mistake, given that form over three or four games in a World Cup is not so trusty a barometer as three or four seasons. Often, not even half a season passes before buyer’s remorse kicks in (remember Kléberson to Manchester United?… They’d rather forget, too).

The ‘World Cup Effect’

It is significant to note that the World Cup Effect has seemingly - or more likely, definitely - reared its head once again, with huge winter spends.

In the last week, we have seen the most expensive British transfer fee ever: £106.8m for Enzo Fernández. A player who has played 17 domestic games in Europe at Benfica and was one of the stars for World Cup winners Argentina. He was one part - a massive chunk - of a top-flight winter splurge totalling £815m, which is easily an all-time high for the January window, beating the previous record of £430m in 2018. 

Chelsea didn't stop at Fernández, splashing out an eye-watering £288m in total. And what enabled them to do that? The answer lies in how UEFA changed the Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules on player amortisation. (‘Amortisation’ is the fancy accountancy term for how a transfer fee is spread over the length of a contract, for example, £30m fee and a three-year deal = £10 million per year). So now the seven and eight-year deals Chelsea have handed out make total sense: it’s all in the interest of gaming the FFP system.

Elsewhere, the bottom half of the Premier League got in on the act. Further proof, if any were needed, that top-flight English clubs, even the lowest-placed in the league, rank higher on the rich lists than many of the ‘biggest’ clubs in Europe. Leeds broke their transfer record, spending £36m on a young French striker, Georginio Rutter, who played in Germany. AFC Bournemouth shelled out £20m for Lorient forward Dango Ouattara. Household names? Hardly.

All of this filters down to the leagues below, including Sheffield United’s (hopefully) temporary home, the Championship.