When Will the 2020/21 Football Season Start?
First things first, due to the Covid-19 virus, the delayed commencement of the 2020/21 football season is expected on 12th September 2020, with the season ending on16 May 2021.
With the Premier League and Championship continuing their 2019/20 seasons despite the pandemic, with their fixtures being completed by the end of July, it will leave a very short turnaround of around six weeks for holiday and pre-season training. The bigger question though was what about the duration of the transfer window?
When Will the 2020/21 Transfer Window Close?
The EFL has today confirmed the opening and closing dates for the 2020 summer transfer window.
Subject to formal ratification, the transfer window will open fully on Monday 27 July, although any player registered before the completion of the 2019/20 season will not be eligible to play for their new Club until season 2020/21 commences. This is applicable to Clubs involved in the Sky Bet Championship Play-Offs.
The window for international registrations closes at 11pm on Monday 5 October, with an agreement in place with the Premier League and EFL for an extended two-week domestic-only window which will close at 5pm on Friday 16 October.
During this window, Premier League clubs will only be able to trade with EFL clubs (either loans or permanent registrations).
So despite the change last season to get transfer business done before the season actually kicked off, unavoidably the window has had to be extended to stay open a month into the 2020/21 season, to provide a realistic time frame for squad rebuilding.
While this will please clubs and football media alike, it’ll be interesting to see how active that market is in terms of big money transfers considering the economic impact of the world pandemic on the sport.
Certainly the suspension of FFP in the short-term will give Aston Villa some breathing space, if the worst comes to pass, in terms of the Premier League relegation picture in the coming days/weeks.
UTV
