There’s a whole host of logistical reasons why hosting a major club competition in the summer is an almighty challenge. There’s the motivation levels – not to mention the fatigue levels – of players at European clubs that have not long finished their domestic seasons: for context, just 16 days separates the end of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign and the start of the 2025 Club World Cup.
There’s also the demand from many clubs to go on lucrative pre-season tours during the summer months, raking in the cash from trips to the United States, Asia, Oceania and elsewhere. Thirdly, there’s the summer transfer window to ponder; specifically, dreaming up ways to make it fair for all clubs and players – whether they’re involved in a tournament or not.
Make no bones about it: FIFA have a job on their hands to convince football clubs, staff, players and fans that an expanded Club World Cup is a competition worth participating in. And the fact that the governing body has revealed that it will have to open up a second summer transfer window – available only to clubs involved in the Club World Cup – is hardly going to aid in that quest.
Why Are There Two Transfer Windows This Summer?
The reimagined Club World Cup takes place between June 14 and July 13 with the summer transfer window in Europe opening on June 12. While those involved in the Club World Cup find themselves spending a month in the United States, other clubs from the Premier League and around the globe will be on home soil plotting their signings and player sales.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that player contracts typically come to an end on June 30, meaning that some involved in the Club World Cup may not be allowed to play from the mid-point of the tournament. In this case, FIFA would likely grant exceptions for the likes of Kevin de Bruyne, whose Manchester City deal comes to an end on that date.
FIFA’s Club World Cup Participants
You could forgive participants in the event, which has been expanded to 32 teams as of 2025, for feeling a bit aggrieved for missing out on the opening weeks of the standard transfer window. And FIFA has listened to their concerns. The governing body has announced an ‘interim’ summer transfer window that will be open only to those sides involved in the Club World Cup, running from June 1-10. It will be exclusive to them, allowing for transfers and new contracts to be discussed.
The idea was first mooted at a FIFA council meeting in October, when plans for an ‘exceptional registration window’ of up to ten days were first aired. That has now been voted on and ratified by senior officials. If this all seems unfair to you, then you’re probably right: Club World Cup participants will be able to buy and sell players a full fortnight before any other team can join the party. That is, evidently, a ridiculous competitive advantage.
There’s also a Premier League edict which states that a transfer window can only be open for 89 days per session. So, if the EPL opened their window on June 1 to counter the FIFA effect, it would be forced closed earlier than normal – that would mean that Premier League clubs wouldn’t be able to buy players, but would potentially be exposed to vultures from Europe and Saudi Arabia where the window would still be open.
Premier League’s Response
A solution has been proposed by the Premier League. They could open the transfer window on June 1, ensuring that none of the Club World Cup participants have an edge in the market, before closing it again at the start of the tournament. It would then be reopened towards the end of the competition, perhaps in early July.
Football’s transfer window, in an age of profit and sustainability rules (PSR), is a vital lifeline for clubs needing to make a quick buck. A handful of Premier League clubs were forced to sell players in June 2024, bringing in enough revenue to enable them to pass PSR by the June 30 deadline. Without an active window early in June 2025, they would be unable to do so, which could leave outfits like Manchester United and Aston Villa exposed to the possibility of breaking the rules.
Not So Hot Summer
Interestingly, the summer transfer window has not been as hot in recent times as the name implies. It’s true that, in the summer of 2023, all records were broken as Premier League clubs splashed out an extraordinary £2.3 billion on new players.
Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo both smashed the £100 million ceiling in their respective moves to Arsenal and Chelsea, while 13 other players were involved in a transfer with a fee of £50 million or more – Harry Kane (£95m from Spurs to Bayern Munich), Josko Gvardiol (£77 million to Man City) and Rasmus Hojlund (£72 million to Manchester United) amongst the other big bits of business.
The ramping up of profit & sustainability rules – and the various governing bodies actually beginning to punish club for breaches of them, has brought about a change of dynamic in the summer transfer window. And so, in the heady months of summer 2024, the total collective amount spent by Premier League clubs on transfers fell below the £2 billion mark for the first time since 2021.
Equally as intriguing is that the summer of 2024 saw a new transfer record broken in the Premier League: that was for the highest revenue from players sold, with the total sum hitting £1.4 billion. Julian Alvarez, Michael Olise, Joao Palhinha, Joao Cancelo and Ivan Toney were just some of those to move overseas, which signals something in a sea-change in global transfer mechanics: now, foreign clubs are picking off bargains from the EPL, not the other way around.
Premier League clubs are desperate not to be left behind by FIFA’s interim summer transfer window. But is that to principally buy new talent… or sell off existing players to meet PSR requirements?
