The Secret Footballer: My take on the madness of transfer deadline day, part one

Getting transferred on deadline day can be very lucrative for a player

The Secret Footballer, who has been through many a transfer window as a top flight player, gives us his exclusive thoughts on deadline day and reveals how the deals are actually done...

I've been known to get on my high horse about the transfer window. I just find it difficult to swallow the fact that a business as cosmopolitan as football, that employs workers from across the continent and the rest of the world, can be the subject to freedom of movement restrictions.

But that isn't very interesting to you.

Closer to home, the things that annoy me most about the transfer window are some of the people on Sky Sports News. Presenter Jim White seems to take an impossible amount of surprise in telling us that an average player just moved from Aston Villa to Stoke or Norwich to Southampton.

At the same time, the workers cower in the background, each too scared to tell Jim that he is ridiculously loud and that he ought to consider shutting up. When I put the TV on and see him, I immediately press the mute button. 

As a player, the transfer window may seem like an uncertain time. It is true that, in some cases, players are chosen as if by random as a manager works down the list of strikers that he wants after his primary targets have rejected his advances. But for most of us, we know we're on the move way in advance, even months before.

The deals that you see in the transfer window are only the tip of the iceberg, with the other two-thirds having been tackled way in advance. The window is merely the negotiation period and any agent worth his salt will use every last second of it to push his client's wages higher.

Certainly, if my agent came to me on day one of the window with the done deal, I'd be extremely reluctant to sign. In a finite amount of time, the numbers can only go up as clubs get more desperate, especially if the player is particularly sought after.

That's why you never see that happen.

The real fun starts when the club has you in the building. At that point, you have as good as signed. But I admire any player who refuses to sign should they feel that the deal isn't right for them because the pressure that he is under, at that point, to commit pen to paper is extraordinary.

I felt that way when I was in that position. I was sat in a room in what was a fairly relaxed atmosphere, with my agent, the manager of my would-be club, the club secretary and the chief executive, when my phone rang. Nervous glances followed. I answered it. "TSF? It's Craddie. Listen, you haven't signed yet have ya? Our gaffer wants to speak to you, hold on."

What happened next? Part two of the story to follow soon...

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