Premier League clubs vote to return to old transfer deadline

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Premier League clubs have voted to move the closing date of the summer transfer window.

At Thursday’s shareholders’ meeting the clubs voted to revert to the traditional date at the end of August/early September after two seasons where the window closed on the eve of the campaign.

That means this summer’s window will close at 1700 BST on Tuesday, September 1, with August 31 being a Bank Holiday.

A Premier League statement read: “At a Shareholders’ Meeting today, Premier League clubs voted to adopt a change to the Summer Transfer Window closing date for season 2020/21.

“This will move the closing date back to the traditional point at the end of August/early September.

“The 2020 closing date will therefore be 17:00 BST on 1 September (31 August 2020 being a UK Bank Holiday).

“Clubs agreed after discussing the topic at length at previous Shareholders’ Meetings.”

With the transfer window closing before the start of the Premier League season – but remaining open for most of Europe – Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp was among those to express the need for change.

“I don’t care when it closes, I only think it must close at the same time,” Klopp said in August.

“When they spoke about ‘Let’s finish it before the season starts then everyone knows their squad’ – that’s a good idea. But then the rest didn’t do it and that makes no sense.

“Can somebody explain what is the benefit for the Premier League? We don’t really have a problem but for other teams, their key players are still on the market and everything can happen.”

The PA news agency understands that the clubs also considered a “hybrid” model for the transfer window.

That would have seen a deadline of the start of the season – which is Saturday, August 8 – for domestic transfers and of September 1 for international deals, but having one deadline for both was preferred.

Press Association