The Athletic FC Podcast

Should football scrap transfer fees?

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Episode notes

Mark Chapman and The Athletic's Matt Slater are joined by two of football’s leading economic and legal minds - Daniel Geey and Stefan Szymanski - to help us ponder the question ‘should football scrap transfer fees?’

The current transfer window is moving quite slow, clubs are facing tougher financial challenges, so what if we just got rid of transfer fees and allowed players to move freely between employers like most people do in 'normal' jobs?

Is the current system technically illegal, what would be the alternative system if we chose to replace transfer fees, and can we learn anything from looking at the closed model of trades and free agency in North American sports? 

All this and more considered as we try to get to the bottom of an issue that is fundamental to the game as we know it.

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