In 2007 FIFA created an online system to record professional football transfers across the world, that being called the Transfer Matching System (TMS), two years later and the first electronic transfer was generated through TMS as Jean-Joel Perrier-Doumbe moved from Celtic to Toulouse, while since October 2010 the use of TMS has been compulsory for all transfers of male professional footballers. Last year in 2011 seeing the whole project move even further forward as a full calendar year of transfers across the world was recorded and analysed in TMS.
So, what does the number crunching say on a system that collates information on cross-country transfers only and not ones between two clubs in the same country? Well, first up on average a new transfer was completed every 45 minutes with 11,500 inter-association moves being registered, with the main transfer window months of January, July and August unsurprisingly the most busy, those three months pulling in 60% of all the transfers in the year, the 31st of August alone seeing 317 deals go through.
Maybe it shows how little money there is in large areas of the game now that 70% of the deals completed over the year involved out-of-contract players signing as free agents, which is also a consequence of course of the Bosman ruling that now dates remarkably as far back as 1995. Of the other 30% meanwhile, permanent club-to-club transfers only accounted for 10% of the year’s moves, while the exploding of the loan market this century saw loans account for 12% of transfer deals, with players returning from loans making up 8%.
With that in mind therefore only 14% of transfers involved some kind of financial compensation, while the other 86% went through without any money changing hands. Money, football, players, well the average annual salary of a professional footballer was estimated to be £154,000, although that average is artificially high due to a small number of very high earners, Hi Carlos! The median salary across the world being £27,200, meaning that half of the players earn more than that and half earn less.
You only have to look at some of the European clubs these days to see where a lot of the players come from and go and so 20% of the transfers on the year involved either Argentinian or Brazilian players, the Brazilians alone accounting for 13% or around 1,500 transfers. South America having four countries in the top five most represented nationalities for transfers with Argentina and Brazil in second and first place respectively being joined by Colombia and Uruguay. France the odd one out being in third spot with just 3%, while further down the pecking order England are in eighth place on 2%. Nigeria being the leading African nation, in seventh spot on 3%.
On the subject of England and transfers it would seem there is still hope yet for my professional career to begin as the oldest player to move internationally was remarkably aged 46, with the average age for a transfer being half that at 23, while sticking with halves, 50% of the players on the cross-border move were aged between 22 and 27. Infact, stick yet another half of that half on top of that half, keep up at the back, and you get to 75%, which is the amount of players transferred that were aged 27 or under, a surprisingly large amount I would say.
As far as even younger players are concerned in 2011, 13,000 international transfers or first registrations involved players under the age of 18, around 1,500 applications made to FIFA with 45% of those applications relating to players aged 16 or 17. Probably the most surprising thing not just being that Brazil were beaten into second place as far as nationalities are concerned, but who knocked the Brazilians off top spot. Yep, as you expected, it was Albania, with England in sixth place.
In a footnote elsewhere meanwhile, and relating to my Yeovil Town programme article regarding potential law changes in the game, IFAB (International Football Association Board) last Saturday have voted that tape must be the same colour as the socks from June 1st, while the fourth substitution idea has been withdrawn. Also on the agenda the triple punishment sending off rule will go to a further review, but perhaps the biggest thing is that goal line technology has been given a large leap forward, testing now taking place on Hawk-Eye and GoalRef before a final decision is made in early July on potential implementation of one of the systems.