Rummenigge says smaller clubs backed longer transfer window

Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge backs a universal earlier closure to the summer transfer window, and insists it has been smaller clubs that have been against such change.

While the summer period has normally come to an end around September 1, the Premier League became the first major European competition to institute an earlier close to the transfer window, ending it on the Thursday before the start of the 2018-19 campaign.

FCB 10/1 to beat Wolfsberg 3-1

While criticism has come from some saying the Premier League will be left at a disadvantage, there has been support for such a move being instituted across the continent’s major leagues, with Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti among the backers.

And now Ancelotti’s boss at Bayern has joined the chorus, telling FC Bayern Munich magazine a uniform, earlier closure to the window will be good for the whole of Europe.

"It must come to a uniform solution in the whole of Europe, independently on the start of the season in the individual leagues,” Rummenigge told the magazine. “A collective end of the transfer window on July 31st would also contribute to bringing more sense and rationality back to football.

"Such a useful solution would be in the sense of the clubs, all managers and fans if they knew on the first matchday with which team their clubs start the new season."

Rummenigge also insisted it is not the big clubs like Bayern that have been against such a change in the past. Instead, the Bayern CEO says it was the smaller clubs who wanted the window open later in order to help mitigate a failure to qualify for the Champions League group stage.

"I want to underline that an earlier end of the transfer window never failed due to the big European clubs, but to the smaller clubs which wanted to absorb a possible failure in the UCL qualification on the transfer market,” Rummenigge said.

If the window closed before the start of the domestic campaign, it would currently happen ahead of the final qualification play-off ties for the Champions League, which take place in the final weeks of August. That would mean clubs that needed money for either group stage qualification or player sales would have to make a decision well before knowing their fate in the competition for that season.