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Soccer transfers are extremely complicated at the best of times. But during a major international tournament, such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup, they take on a new level of difficulty. If a player is away representing their country and focused on victory, how can you get a deal done for them?
Perhaps that’s why, in the past, transfers have tended to take a back seat until those tournaments have concluded. Any moves that were made during that period were rarities and often caused shockwaves when they occurred.
For example, Cèsc Fabregas’ €33 million move from Barcelona to Chelsea in 2014 — completed one day after Spain’s opening match of the World Cup in South Africa — was jarring. Two years later, during Euro 2016, the Blues struck quickly once again to sign Belgium striker Michy Batshuayi for €40 million, who had to temporarily depart his national camp to do a preliminary medical ahead of signing.
But this summer, with the biggest-ever World Cup taking place, a slew of players involved in the tournament have transferred while on duty for their nations.
Defenders Ibrahima Konaté (France), Marc Cucurella (Spain) and midfielder Bernardo Silva (Portugal) all joined Real Madrid while out in North America, plus forward Ismael Saibari joined Bayern Munich from PSV Eindhoven for €55 million while Morocco were still competing.
Then there are the two blockbuster deals: forward Gonçalo Ramos joined AC Milan from Paris Saint-Germain for €74 million while with the Portugal squad, and Manchester City reached an agreement with Nottingham Forest to pay £116 million to sign ball-winning midfielder Elliot Anderson despite him playing a crucial role for England.
Even in the high-pressure knockout stages, the transfer fun doesn’t stop: Ahead of Switzerland’s quarterfinal against Argentina, forward Johan Manzambi has reportedly agreed a €60 million move to Newcastle.
But with these players engaged and focused on representing their country, how are these deals getting done? What difficulties and differences occur when sealing deals for players in this scenario?
ESPN spoke to various agents and club sources to find out.
Most transfers follow a fairly standardized order of events.
First, clubs, agents and potentially intermediaries discuss a potential deal. It’s here that rough terms are sketched out for how much a club might ask for a player, and what that player’s personal terms (wages, bonuses, length of contract etc.) might be.
If all parties find themselves roughly on the same wavelength, formal negotiations can start and a deal can be struck. Then the player has a medical examination, signs a contract, and their registration is submitted to FIFA’s Transfer Matching System (TMS) to make it official.
Most of this can be done without the player needing to be directly involved, but at a certain point — if not when negotiations formalize, then definitely when it comes to the medical — their input is obviously necessary. But if they’re away at an international tournament, how do you get it done?
Gonçalo Ramos joined AC Milan from Paris Saint-Germain for €74 million while with the Portugal squad. Carmen Mandato – FIFA/FIFA via Getty ImagesEvery club has a preferred facility or hospital in their local area to perform medicals at, and perhaps a specialist doctor to consult with on certain issues too. But when you can’t bring a player to those facilities, you have to go to them.”Clubs will fly their staff out to whichever location the transfer target is in to complete a medical there,” says agent Alex Levack, who struck his first deal during an international tournament at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. “Big clubs are going to want their top staff to be out there to complete big deals.”You can hardly blame them for that, given the hefty sums it takes to sign players. For example, with a £116 million transfer fee on the table for Anderson, Manchester City are going to be involved throughout.That stated, the complexities of these medicals are sometimes overblown, Leon Angel, Co-Head of Football, CAA Base, tells ESPN: “They check their hearts, they get scans done, and they request old medical records, which clubs keep a history of. If the player has had, say, cartilage problems, or torn their ACL in the past, then they would send the scans and reports to their preferred specialist to see if there were any concerns.”How easy it is to facilitate a medical abroad seemingly depends on which level of the game you’re operating at. Angel, who negotiated defender Kyle Walker’s £50 million move to Manchester City in 2017, hasn’t encountered many issues. Levack tells ESPN that elite clubs operate in a “network” that will usually grant you access to the best of the best.
Anderson’s checks were performed at England’s Kansas City World Cup base, overseen by his new club. AC Milan flew staff out to Miami to conduct Ramos’ medical while Portugal were based there. That’s easy enough to do in the USA, surrounded by superb facilities, with a healthy gap of four to six days between games.
For others, though, it’s different. NWSL side Racing Louisville signed Thembi Kgatlana from Atlético Madrid just before the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. With a game every three days, there was no time to perform a medical — an MRI alone can take an hour — so they agreed a transfer subject to a medical after the tournament. Unfortunately, she tore her Achilles tendon in the group stage. This is a story we’ll return to later.
England bosses Thomas Tuchel and Sarina Wiegman take opposite views toward players moving clubs during major tournaments. Getty ImagesA typical transfer has three parties: the player, their current club and their prospective new club. But during international tournaments, there’s a fourth party: the international manager and the federation behind them.Sometimes the impact of that is light. For example, Thomas Tuchel and England were very accommodating with Anderson’s blockbuster move to City. “Everyone knew he was going to either Man City or Man United,” Angel explains. “The terms for the player would have been discussed and agreed before the World Cup. Then, as soon as the clubs agree terms, Tuchel’s attitude was ‘get the medical done, get it signed.'”Portugal were similarly accommodating with Milan and Ramos, and given the number of deals not only advancing, but being completed, during this World Cup, clearly other managers and federations were, too.But that has not always been the case. Levack has dealt with situations when managers have preferred to shut down transfer talk while the tournament is on, as has Angel: “Take someone like England women’s manager Sarina Wiegman. She tends to say to the squad, ‘If any of you are moving, please get it done before you come here, I don’t want anything to do with transfer business to affect us.'” CAA Base have had to move quickly during tournament summers to respect those wishes.Psychological impactEvery agent ESPN consulted for this piece was quick to highlight what they felt was the biggest difficulty and danger posed by mid-tournament transfers: adversely affecting the player psychologically.Tuchel and Wiegman might take opposite approaches here, but they’re actually trying to achieve the same result: Do not distract the player from the priority at hand, which is representing their national team in the best possible way.Pro Eleven CFO Vítor Gonçalves states it very firmly: “In my opinion, if a transfer cannot be completed before the player reports for international duty, communication with the player should be reduced to the absolute minimum.”Angel adds: “You wouldn’t want to feel responsible for telling them certain things, then they perhaps hold back from a duel because they don’t want to get injured — as that’s normally when you do get injured.”Levack says the biggest worry in this scenario is if a deal falls through: “If there’s a negotiation going on, and let’s say the player has been told by the club or the agent that a move is happening, and then mid-tournament they pull out — that could easily have a detrimental effect.”Elite players often find a way to focus on the task at hand, but they’re only human. If Anderson’s dream move to City had collapsed as he was preparing to face Mexico at the Azteca Stadium, it would have been reasonable for that to affect him in some way.
Thembi Kgatlana, who now plays for Tigres, previously had a transfer almost scuppered due to a serious mid-tournament injury. Ulrik Pedersen/DeFodi Images via Getty ImagesThere’s a well-worn cliché in life: “Best laid plans often go awry.” When it comes to transfers during international tournaments, all parties work hard to ensure a smooth process and minimal disruption — but sometimes disaster strikes.That was certainly the case for South Africa’s Kgatlana. Her aforementioned transfer from Atlético to Racing Louisville during the 2022 Women’s AFCON was set to happen. However, the fast pace of the tournament meant that a medical could not be completed before kickoff against Botswana in the final group game. A $120,000 deal was agreed, subject to checks at a later date. Then she tore her Achilles tendon.
“She smashed the group stage games; she was playing so well,” Austin Buchanan, who engineered the move as the director of scouting and strategy at Racing Louisville at the time, tells ESPN.
“Then I remember the moment Chris [Atkins, Kgatlana’s agent] called. I was walking to the basement, and my wife stated I looked like somebody had died. I just buried my head into my hands. I poured a pint immediately. I knew that would make things very, very difficult now.”
Atkins adds: “Calling Racing Louisville to tell them what had happened was really difficult. It’s one that’s really stayed with me.”
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For Buchanan, this threatened six months of work: He had initially reached out to Atlético in the previous transfer window about moving her to a different club but was told no. Roughly every two weeks thereafter, he checked in again to see if there was any traction. Finally, after around 10 calls, a breakthrough was made during the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, and Kgatlana was set to move pending a medical.
“There was obviously no chance she was going to pass one with that injury,” Atkins says. “When we spoke to our lawyers, they verified what we already suspected: The transfer agreement was conditional on her passing a medical. Racing were completely within their rights to walk away from the deal.”
But somehow it got back on track.
“The most difficult part of this was that the deal was in limbo: all agreed, but not officially done,” Buchanan recalls. “Atlético didn’t want to change anything, but we couldn’t keep the fee the same — we weren’t getting a year of the player for the fee we had agreed. The league [NWSL] recommended we not go through with it, but ultimately it was our call.
“We went back and forth more times than I can remember. At one point, I thought the deal would die. But we finally agreed on a more incentive-laden deal, so if Thembi played well, they’d get their original fee.”
The structure of the deal changed from $90,000 fixed with $30,000 in add-ons to an even split of $60,000 fixed and $60,000 in add-ons. All parties claim it worked out in the end, but it serves to highlight the complexities of doing transfers during tournaments.
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