Will there be a mass exodus of top players from Europe's major leagues?
Rodri Baster, founder and director of football as Promoesport, analyses the impact of the coronavirus on football for MARCA.
Will there be a mass exodus of top players from Europe's major leagues?
The current situation with the coronavirus pandemic opens up a lot of questions about the next transfer window. The first is about when it will open. It will depend on whether they are able to restart the season and when but, when this moment arrives, there could be all sorts of scenarios.
One of them could be the possible exodus of top players from clubs and leagues most affected by the coronavirus crisis to other markets or clubs that have suffered less. This is a possibility that, in my opinion, is improbable because of different reasons.
Looking at markets away from Europe, MLS won't be able to compete. The salary cap, despite the rule of designated players, will make a mass influx of players to this league impossible. Furthermore, the worrying growth of coronavirus in the United States makes it very difficult to predict when football will be able to resume there.
Discarding the North American market, there is always the belief that China and Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the United Arab Emirates are very attractive destinations economically speaking for footballers. Players at the ends of their careers are particularly attracted to these Middle Eastern nations, but we have to bear in mind that the average fee spent on these big names is around 10 to 15 million euros in those countries, with the exception of a record 35 million euro transfer in Qatar.
China have stopped being a main rival to clubs in Europe. The laws around spending implemented by the Chinese government don't allow transfers of more than five million euros, nor wage figures of more than three million euros a year. This has halted the big-money transfers and wages that we've seen in recent years, especially between 2015 and 2019, when there were six transfers worth more than 40 million euros, with some even reaching 60 million.
Taking this all into account, we come to the conclusion that football's biggest transfers will remain between Europe's borders. I firmly believe that the market will cause Europe's top clubs to buy from clubs of less stature in leagues that are more powerful. Then these average-sized clubs will sign players from smaller clubs and so on. How it's been for many years.
