As a person responsible for sport, Markus Krösche has already put one or the other transfer exclamation mark at SC Paderborn, RB Leipzig and since June 2021 at Eintracht Frankfurt. The 41-year-old knows the market very well. Now the sports board of the SGE has commented on the current goings-on and formulated a clear demand.
The effects of the corona pandemic are “also very clearly felt in this summer of transfers,” Krösche clarified in an interview with the “kicker”. On the one hand, the spectator income that has long since disappeared would still have an after-effect, on the other hand, the recently quiet transfer landscape would have ensured that almost every squad still had players who were equipped with well-paid contracts before the pandemic but no longer play a major role in sport would.
In his analysis, however, Krösche explicitly ignores the “top range”. The “big clubs” would continue to “find access to fresh capital. The gap to the rest is widening. Top clubs have to invest to remain competitive – Bayern, Dortmund and Leipzig are also going this way in the Bundesliga.” so Krsöche further.
In this context, the SGE-maker demands that the transfer window closes before the first matchday. “The big clubs currently have the opportunity to react to short-term developments and poach top performers from other clubs at a late stage. The smaller ones find it difficult to react again at the end of the transfer period due to the time pressure,” says Krösche. “From my perspective, the big leagues in Europe have to find a common way that the transfer window closes before Matchday 1 starts.”
Eintracht Frankfurt has also invested heavily
While the majority of Bundesliga clubs have so far generated a transfer surplus in the summer of 2022, FC Bayern and BVB have posted a deficit of 33 and 29 million euros respectively. However, it is also true that Eintracht Frankfurt has the fourth worst record so far with a minus of nine million euros, while RB Leipzig has made a plus of 17.5 million euros. Of course, the numbers could change later in the day.
Meanwhile, only the English Premier League is completely unimpressed. There they are talking about “completely different dimensions”, Krösche clarifies, there is “an imbalance” with the rest of the football world. “It’s clear that not only the top clubs are investing in the Premier League, but also the clubs that don’t play in international business are investing massively. You don’t find that in any other league.”