What happens during a transfer ban if players want to leave?

[Qwerty]

If the worst happens, we’re relegated and the EFL impose an immediate transfer ban - I’ve been wondering what happens to all the players who would be pushing for a move?  What do clubs do in these situations?  Do they force them to stay and have disgruntled players?  Or do they let them go and play academy kids?   The only significant transfer ban I can remember clearly was the Chelsea one a few years ago, and they had so many players they barely noticed.   Does anyone have any knowledge of this? 

[Big Dave]

Isnt it just a ban on signing new players?  Can sell anyone you want.

[dmayne7]

2 minutes ago, Big Dave said:

Isnt it just a ban on signing new players?  Can sell anyone you want.

Yep, wouldn't be that much of a punishment otherwise and would undermine any attempts to actually get the books balanced.

[CUJimmy]

My understanding is a transfer ban only applies to incoming players but nobody has a right to leave if they are still in contract.  The problem, of course, is that if we let their contracts run down they can leave for nothing but who would ever do that …

[Fox 4 Life]

What basis would the EFL have for a transfer ban? We have been compliant with PSR for 2 years and will likely be fine for this financial year given we are not spending and the worst year of losses comes off our cycle.

[CUJimmy]

2 minutes ago, Fox 4 Life said:

What basis would the EFL have for a transfer ban? We have been compliant with PSR for 2 years and will likely be fine for this financial year given we are not spending and the worst year of losses comes off our cycle.

They make up the rules as they go along (“We know it isn’t what we said but it’s obviously what we mean”) so they will try to impose a transfer ban and/or points deduction.  We will then go to arbitration and win.  Rinse and repeat.

[CUJimmy]

11 minutes ago, CUJimmy said:

My understanding is a transfer ban only applies to incoming players but nobody has a right to leave if they are still in contract.  The problem, of course, is that if we let their contracts run down they can leave for nothing but who would ever do that …

I might be imagining this but I seem to remember someone, probably Chelsea, getting a transfer ban that would also prevent existing players signing new contracts.  The PL though, with their usual level of competence, decided that this wouldn’t start until the next transfer window so the club spent the next few months locking all their top assets into long contracts.

[ClaphamFox]

9 minutes ago, Fox 4 Life said:

What basis would the EFL have for a transfer ban? We have been compliant with PSR for 2 years and will likely be fine for this financial year given we are not spending and the worst year of losses comes off our cycle.

A transfer ban is unlikely. I'm not sure why it keeps being mentioned as it's highly unlikely the EFL would be able to impose one on us unless it thought we were going to fail PSR for 2025/26, and even then it would only be imposed during the winter transfer window.

 

A points deduction is possible, but I'm not even sure how likely this is. I'm sure we'd explain every legal option possible to challenge it. It wouldn't surprise me if we started next season with effectively a clean slate and all the other clubs complaining bitterly that we've got away with it again...

[moore_94]

The transfer embargo we had put on us by the EFL was due to their forecasts we would breach the upper limit for the period ending in 2024 - we didn’t - so I can’t see how they could get away with putting another one on us currently

 

Unless it links back to the 22/23 shenanigans but even then I would expect DeMarco to slap them down again

 

Personally I am not worried at all about the EFL getting us for anything in the summer, it will be around Christmas like when they tried last season

[Daggers]

58 minutes ago, Qwerty said:

If the worst happens, we’re relegated and the EFL impose an immediate transfer ban - I’ve been wondering what happens to all the players who would be pushing for a move?  What do clubs do in these situations?  Do they force them to stay and have disgruntled players?  Or do they let them go and play academy kids?   The only significant transfer ban I can remember clearly was the Chelsea one a few years ago, and they had so many players they barely noticed.   Does anyone have any knowledge of this? 

If players were forced to remain then Vardy would be in the running for this bloke's title

 

 

[willie-bell-in-rothley]

10 minutes ago, Daggers said:

If players were forced to remain then Vardy would be in the running for this bloke's title

 

 

Probably still better than James Justin

[Ricey]

I doubt they will slap an embargo on us straight away as it serves no purpose. The embargo has nothing to do with punishment and everything to do with stopping a club spending if they are forecast to fail PSR for that season. A summer transfer window embargo weakens our chance of passing 25/26 PSR because we won't be able to sell players if we can't replace them.

[Qwerty]

1 hour ago, Big Dave said:

Isnt it just a ban on signing new players?  Can sell anyone you want.

Yes, but if we sold our players and we couldn’t sign new ones we wouldn’t have a team.  

[filbertway]

51 minutes ago, Daggers said:

If players were forced to remain then Vardy would be in the running for this bloke's title

 

 

@Rudkin 4.5 year contact and 30k a week could secure him!

[Big Dave]

5 minutes ago, Qwerty said:

Yes, but if we sold our players and we couldn’t sign new ones we wouldn’t have a team.  

We have a large squad.  You can sell players and promote from the youth team.

[Viva]

There won't be a transfer embargo. We would be in a much more sustainable financial position than the last relegation, when promotion was basically do or die. 

[Qwerty]

Really I was just wondering if anyone has seen it happen before, when a club has not been allowed to bring any players in, and has therefore hung on to their existing players, despite them wanting to go .  
I know you can still sell players when under a transfer ban, but obviously you wouldn’t want to, because then who would play the matches?!!  
 

The idea of a possible transfer ban just comes from the rumour mill really, and that Guardian article saying the EPL want to throw the book at us.  I assume they will argue that we still haven’t been punished for 22/23, because if we said we weren’t in the PL then, that means we must have been in the Championship.  Anyway, there are plenty of threads about that.  Mainly I was curious about how a transfer ban would work. 

[moore_94]

8 minutes ago, Qwerty said:

Really I was just wondering if anyone has seen it happen before, when a club has not been allowed to bring any players in, and has therefore hung on to their existing players, despite them wanting to go .  
I know you can still sell players when under a transfer ban, but obviously you wouldn’t want to, because then who would play the matches?!!  
 

The idea of a possible transfer ban just comes from the rumour mill really, and that Guardian article saying the EPL want to throw the book at us.  I assume they will argue that we still haven’t been punished for 22/23, because if we said we weren’t in the PL then, that means we must have been in the Championship.  Anyway, there are plenty of threads about that.  Mainly I was curious about how a transfer ban would work. 

https://www.efl.com/governance/embargoes/
 

During a Transfer Window

 

Clubs can ‘staff up’, so they have 23 players of Professional Standing within their squad.

 

Clubs are able to ‘staff up’ to ensure the integrity of the competitions remain and so that Clubs are able to fulfil their fixtures.

 

Clubs are only permitted to ‘staff up’ by signing players on loan or players not registered with another Club

 

Clubs cannot pay fees to acquire loan players and cannot pay additional wages on top of the salary the player receives at their parent Club

 

Clubs ‘staffing up’ may only register players until the end of the current Season, whilst loan transfers can only be for half a season

Budget restrictions apply dependent upon the divisional status of the Club under embargo

[blue blood]

Let's be honest.  A transfer ban would stop us from buying turd. 

[LCFCJohn]

9 minutes ago, Qwerty said:

Really I was just wondering if anyone has seen it happen before, when a club has not been allowed to bring any players in, and has therefore hung on to their existing players, despite them wanting to go .  
I know you can still sell players when under a transfer ban, but obviously you wouldn’t want to, because then who would play the matches?!!  
 

The idea of a possible transfer ban just comes from the rumour mill really, and that Guardian article saying the EPL want to throw the book at us.  I assume they will argue that we still haven’t been punished for 22/23, because if we said we weren’t in the PL then, that means we must have been in the Championship.  Anyway, there are plenty of threads about that.  Mainly I was curious about how a transfer ban would work. 

It won’t affect the ability to let players leave but I get your point was about whether we would have to keep some of there is an inability to replace or we could end up without a squad. Perhaps at that point they’d need to drop it?

 

An embargo is useless anyway. If it is about sustainability (which it isn’t), the way to get the club in order is to sell and replace, making profit in terms of transfer fees and also bringing the wage bill down. An embargo and the scenario you highlight about keeping those we would sell on high wages, actually prevents us getting in line and increases the chance of breaching again. 
 

Due to our incompetence, they’d be better off just ratifying our transfer business!

[ACF]

Might be the only way we get the development pathway some of us have been wanting.

[wardyfox86]

Even if there was the threat of an embargo, there's the possibility of us getting our business done early (unlikely with us)

 

There's a significant amount of time between the final game of the season and actually being relegated to the EFL. I'm pretty sure we can operate in the market as normal whilst still technically a PL club.

 

As for players wanting to leave. Almost all of them have proven they aren't good enough for PL football, so if they think they're better than us and want to leave, let them. I want some new players to get behind anyway, fallen out of love with the majority of our squad.

[filbertway]

9 minutes ago, wardyfox86 said:

Even if there was the threat of an embargo, there's the possibility of us getting our business done early (unlikely with us)

 

There's a significant amount of time between the final game of the season and actually being relegated to the EFL. I'm pretty sure we can operate in the market as normal whilst still technically a PL club.

 

As for players wanting to leave. Almost all of them have proven they aren't good enough for PL football, so if they think they're better than us and want to leave, let them. I want some new players to get behind anyway, fallen out of love with the majority of our squad.

We've already had Nick DeMarco argue successfully that this isn't the case 

[dmayne7]

43 minutes ago, Viva said:

There won't be a transfer embargo. We would be in a much more sustainable financial position than the last relegation, when promotion was basically do or die. 

How do you know for certain? We'll back back in the EFL's jurisdiction so they will do everything to get us punished

[Foxin_Mad]

Im not sure we have that many saleable players, Mads, Bilal, that's honestly about it. It would be nice if we could keep Bilal and he would be absolutely quality in the Championship. The rest of our squad, most 2 times relegated, who the hell would want them?