2024 Summer Transfers: this could get very messy

 

• Arsenal back at the top and have a clear plan for the future
• The great Premier League refereeing scandal – revealed

Football is starting to see tax laws which help or hinder clubs buying players from outside the country.

As we know in the Premier League there are rules that aim to encourage clubs to have a key number of English players in their squads.

That was a crazy rule introduced into the statute books in the vague hope that it would help the development of an English squad that could win something on the international stage.  It doesn’t seem to have worked so the logical thing to do (for the FA) is to do is to abandon it.  But they don’t.  They are thinking of expanding it.

That’s a bit weird but is not the only place there is weirdness in football transfers.    The ‘Decreto Crescita’ has been introduced in Italy so that players and coaches who have not worked within Italy for 24 months can claim 50% tax relief when they do turn up.

That is interesting because one of the reasons most commonly given by foreign players not wanting to play in the Premier League is the punitive tax system which removes 50% of their pay before they see it.

Mind you the Decrto Crescita is about to be abandoned, not because it doesn’t help the clubs but because too many clubs take advantage of it.

For it is estimated that around a third of players in Serie A in Italy are now claiming this benefit.

Anyway, just as Father Christmas appears in stores earlier and earlier every year, so do the summer transfer rumours.   We’ve noted this tales each year for quite a few years (I can’t bear to go back and see how many) and last season the pundits got more of their predictions right than ever before, reaching an accuracy level of three percent!!!

So we are all interested to see if this can be increased, or will we once more slip back to the hinterland (or is that the undergrowth) with a success level of closer to 2% accuracy?

Here is the opening salvo of the players that Arsenal will be signing this summer…

 

	Player Incoming	From	Source
1	Franceso Camarda,	AC Milan	FFC
2	Eduardo Camavinga	Real Madrid	Caught Offside
3	Ousmane Diomande	Sporting CP	Express   The TrivelaEffect
4	Alexander Isak.	Newcastle United	Pain in the Arsenal
5	Mikayel Faye	Barcelona	Hard Tackle
6	Victor Gyokeres	Sporting Lisbon	Pain in the Arsenal, Football London, Just Arsenal
7	Benjamin Sesko	RB Leipzig	Caught Offside,
8	Georgiy Sudakov	Shakhta D	HITC
9	Martin Zubimendi	Real Sociedad	TeamTalk,  Express
10	Joshua Zirkzee.	Bologna	Pain in the Arsenal, Sky Sports, Football Talk Arsenal Station, Caught Offside,
	Leaving
1	Jorginho,	Barcelona	Teamtalk
2	Charlie Patino	Fulham	Hard Tackle

 

We shall as ever add a few more from time to time, and then totalling up the accuracy rate to see if three  out of 100 are accurate stories.  But please don’t hold your breath.   We have almost five months to go to the glass of the window tinkles gaily on the ground.

You can however join in if you like.  Just email Tony@schools.co.uk and in the subject line write Transfers and offer the name of the player Arsenal are thinking of singing, which publication it wsa that you saw the story in, and who the player plays for now.

There’s no reward but it would be fun to see if we can get over the 130 transfers rumours that we had last summer.