When will the winter transfer market open/close?
If calculated by GMT time, the transfer market will open in the UK at 0:00 on January 1, 2023 and end at 23:00 on January 31, 2023. Similar to this time frame are Scotland, Germany and the Women's Super League system.
For clubs in Italy, Spain and France, they will have to wait another 24 hours, which means the opening time will be 0:00 on January 2, 2023. The end date of the winter market of the tournaments is the same (31.1) but the end time will be different.
Premier League, EFL and La Liga are at 11pm. Bundesliga is 5:00 p.m. Serie A is 19:00. Ligue 1 is 23:59. Clubs can include new players in the starting lineup from January 2, 2023. However, all procedures must be completed before the last working day's noon, before the match takes place on the weekend. January 1 and January 2 are still counted as working days.
The transfer market next winter is expected to be more vibrant than usual due to the impacts of the 2022 World Cup. The Cody Gakpo deal to Liverpool is considered the first in a series of upcoming surprises.
The name that is of course most popular is Cristiano Ronaldo. The 37-year-old superstar does not need to wait until the opening of the Winter market to find a new destination. The reason is that he is a free player. CR7 is Al-Nassr's number 1 target from Saudi Arabia but he has not accepted despite being offered a super-huge contract.
Meanwhile, having lost Ronaldo and missed Gakpo, Manchester United need to spend money to hunt for a striker next month if they do not want to fall behind in the Premier League Top 4 race.
Speaking about the sought-after stars after the 2022 World Cup, the names that can be quickly listed include: Sofyan Amrabat, Azzedine Ounahi, Jude Bellingham, Dominic Livakovic, Enzo Fernandez, Mohammed Kudus and Joao Felix. Among these, if someone moves to the new destination, their price will not be cheap. The most expensive could be Bellingham's case, with the £100 million deal with Dortmund at the moment being too cheap for them to release the English star.
Meanwhile, there are stars who have always been highly valuable like Felix but it is difficult to leave Atletico in the form of a "bomb explosion" next month. The Portuguese striker has been linked with Manchester United under a loan deal.
The players whose contracts will expire in June 2023 are the group expected to create vibrant transactions in the next trading session. They are preparing to enter a period of free negotiation with any club to find the best price. The teams that currently own this group also need to sell quickly if they do not want to lose everything in just half a year.
Some famous players in this group include N'Golo Kante and Jorginho (Ch Chelsea), Marcus Thuram (Moenchengladbach), Naby Keita (Liverpool) ...
In the 2022 winter transfer window, Premier League teams spent up to 295 million pounds on the winter transfer window. This is the second highest amount in the history of the tournament, behind the £430 million in 2018. The increase was due to Newcastle's outstanding spending since being invested by PIF. The Premier League is expected to break the £295m mark next month.
