Whelan Says Get Rid of the Transfer Window

Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan says he would like to see an end to the current transfer system with the January window too long in his opinion

Whelan claims that the window inflates players prices and benefits the selling clubs who get more than what the players are actually worth, he told reporters:


'The transfer window makes things very difficult for clubs like ours, a month is too long - that is the big problem of it. If it was a fortnight or 10 days, that would be plenty.'

'Everything happens in the last seven days anyway. If they are going to keep it, then they either have to half it or reduce it even more - maybe to even just a week.

'There are two ways of looking at it. You can either go back to the old days where you could buy or sell players throughout the season, or you cut it back to a week or two at the most.

'One thing the transfer window does is put the prices up for everybody, and clubs end up paying money for players who are not actually worth the fee because of pure desperation.

'All it does is create an artificial market, and it inflates players' prices enormously. Clubs are made to buy players out of desperation, which I suppose is okay for the clubs selling them, but not for everybody else.'

The Latics exploited this by getting £14 million for Wilson Palacios from Spurs, a player they bought for less than £1 million just 12 months previously and they managed to get Aston Villa to fork out £3.5 million for Emile Heskey who would have been available for free in the summer.

Whelan revealed that the Premier League chairmen met this week with the transfer window high on the agenda, Latics sent director Maurice Lindsay as the clubs representative and he reported back to Whelan on the matters discussed, Big Dave continued:

'I'd be interested to see what is done as a result of the meeting, to get anything changed, you have to have 14 out of 20 clubs to vote in favour.

'I believe they discussed the matter at the meeting last week. If they had a vote tomorrow, I think they'd get it. But we'll have to wait and see.'

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