If you were to go back and read the football rumours of November 2019 and early December 2019, the talk was of more excess. More club record signings. More billions being spent on footballers. However, in the age of the COVID-19 virus, we are looking at a whole new landscape for football. It’s likely that one of three things will take place:
- Players who were previously set for a major move will stick around for a year, hoping for normality to resume.
- Players will get their moves, but at vastly reduced costs for both transfer fees and the wages being earned.
- Clubs will have to take a look further down their list of targets, with many ‘A’ targets unaffordable compared to previously.
This is likely to produce a massive change to the way that football works. Clubs are already being adjusting to the market and what it means. For example, one fine example comes at Liverpool FC. The would-be/should-be English champions have been linked with a new central defender for some time. The injury-prone Joel Matip and Joe Gomez are fine players but lack reliability. Dejan Lovren is both consistently unfit and inconsistent on the pitch.
For a while there, the Reds were being linked with everyone from Milan Skriniar to Samuel Umtiti. Now, though, the latest links show the likely reality of football finance moving forward; Diego Carlos. The 27-year-old has been solid enough for Sevilla but would mark a significant step down from some of the names being bandied around before this outbreak took place.
So, if Liverpool are having to readjust their targets to a smaller level of financial ambition, will that mean that most of the football world will follow suit? It’s likely to be the case moving forward.
