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HAY: Time FIFA axed the window
It is fashionable at Elland Road – and not entirely unjustified – to dislike the Football League, but how much was the organisation to blame for Liam Dickinson's aborted transfer to Leeds United?
Dickinson came within 14 minutes of joining Leeds on Monday afternoon, potentially the finest margin by which a Football League club failed to meet the deadline set for them to complete permanent transfers in the January window.
Click here to watch the latest edition of the Boot Room as Phil Hay and Andrew Hutchinson look ahead to Leeds United's clash against Millwall at Elland Road.
According to Leeds, the fax sent to confirm his arrival from Derby County reached the League at 5.14pm, a fraction of time after the 5pm watershed.
The resulting stand-off was the equivalent of United staring through a full-lit window at a shopkeeper who had no intention of re-opening his locked door.
Leeds were entitled to feel frustrated. Terms for a loan which would have covered the rest of their season had been negotiated with Derby and Dickinson, and there were no financial obstacles to overcome.
Clubs are used to abandoning transfers that are either unaffordable or unagreeable, but it is more difficult to be philosophical about deals which fall foul of simple logistics.
The Football League made its bed with Leeds and their supporters when they took a hyper-critical view of the club's insolvency in 2007, and they have lain in it ever since, but on this occasion it is a little too easy to pin the blame for Dickinson's non-appearance on Brian Mawhinney and his cohorts.
United argued that the appalling weather in England on Monday should have made the window's deadline more flexible, a view taken by the Premier League.
They bent their rules slightly to accommodate transfers delayed by the weather, but it does not appear that the Football League received any representation from their members in advance of the deadline suggesting they followed suit.
With Dickinson's transfer, the League applied the 5pm rule as it is supposed to stand. The League's application of its regulations in general is not always as convincing or understandable – the organisation is presently dealing with incoming fire over Jermaine Defoe's involvement in one leg of the Carling Cup semi-final between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur – but that is another argument.
If nothing else, all 72 of their clubs were treated equally on Monday by a deadline which did what is said on the tin.
Reading between the lines, it is clear that efforts were made by United on Monday to sign Lee Trundle on loan from Bristol City until the end of the season, a request City rejected.
How late in the day the decision from Ashton Gate came has not been confirmed, but it is entirely plausible that the approach for Dickinson was made in response to it.
In that scenario the club's biggest hurdle was always going to be time and, whether brought on by the snow or not, the deadline elapsed before the transfer was registered.
The predictable result was angry words between Leeds and the Football League, but that fight has no purpose and neither party should feel the need to eyeball the other.
The collapse of the Dickinson deal is rather indicative of an unwelcome state of affairs in which clubs are forced to shoe-horn their most important transfer business of each season into a single month.
Derby's young forward is actually a striking example of how ridiculous the transfer system favoured by FIFA has become.
Leeds have abandoned the original deal to bring Dickinson to Elland Road for the rest of the term, but from the start of next week they will be free to sign him anyway!
The Football League's emergency loan market – itself a complete misnomer – gives clubs the freedom to sign players for up to 93 days.
And if United time his arrival correctly, they could negotiate a switch with Derby which frees Dickinson to represent them until the end of the League One play-offs, assuming Leeds are involved.
A similar deal was reached with Crystal Palace for Dougie Freedman last season.
In a roundabout way, the Elland Road club would get what they want, albeit with the probable drawback that Dickinson's contract would contain a 24-hour recall clause. But since the striker has not played for Derby once this season, that is no more than a feint threat.
That possible chain of events begs the question why a 14-minute delay should postpone a transfer that could still materialise regardless? And in what way Leeds – or any other club – is better off for operating under the skewed system?
It is not the Football League's question to answer – if anything, their insistence on a loan market has prevented even greater problems – but FIFA's. The world governing body is insistent that transfer windows work well, which makes you wonder what it sees as their purpose.
All FIFA seems to demonstrate is that its officials and rules have no appreciation of the game as it exists in England's lower leagues.
One justification for transfer windows was the idea that they would automatically limit spending among professional clubs and last month very little money was paid out by teams beneath the Premier League – Leeds United included.
But was that cautious attitude encouraged by FIFA's windows or rather by the fact that most clubs have no serious funds to invest?
There are, it must be said, greater deterrents against over-spending than the allowance of a month to make signings.
More effective are the brutal points deductions that the Football League has started handing out to clubs who lose control of their finances and dive into administration.
In the future, Luton Town will manage their accounts more carefully because of the 30 points deducted from them this season, not because FIFA denied them enough time to amass critical amounts of debt through signings and wages.
The transfer window has become a circus, and a tedious one at that. What chance of a return to the old system of inviting transfers until the final Thursday in March, a sensible point at which the market should close? FIFA might fear a resumption of boom and bust, but Football League clubs on the whole are tuned in and receptive to advice about realistic budgets and safe finance.
The most bizarre feature of the transfer window is that no-one at the end of it is ever happy. Leeds United certainly weren't.
Deadlines are deadlines and rules are rules, but it is still not clear why those rules are necessary, effective or tolerated.
Every year we have this discussion and every year it seems to get worse.
Ends
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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