Inside the High-Stakes World of TransferRoom: Where Soccer’s Future is Decided
In the bustling city of Berlin, Germany, a unique event is taking place at the Estrel Hotel, just a 20-minute drive from the heart of the capital. Here, in a room filled with 160 numbered desks, representatives from over 300 clubs and more than 80 agencies have gathered for a whirlwind of activity centered around one of soccer’s most crucial elements: transfers.
The room is a melting pot of football’s key figures, including owners, general managers, sporting directors, scouts, agents, and data analysts. Their mission? To engage in a series of rapid 15-minute meetings, aiming to get a head start before the summer transfer window opens. “I say to my wife it’s like speed dating,” quips Luke Sassano, chief scout at Major League Soccer’s Nashville SC.
Welcome to TransferRoom, where the transfer market goes into overdrive.
Nashville SC is among 12 MLS clubs represented. The event also features 17 clubs from the Premier League, including the big six: Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Tottenham. Other notable clubs include Ajax, Roma, Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig, Sporting CP, and Galatasaray. In total, 303 clubs from 73 leagues across 47 countries are packed into one room.
Meetings are arranged via an app, which assigns a table number once both parties agree on a time. The room resembles a giant chess tournament, with its precise layout of tables and chairs. A digital clock on a giant green screen counts down, and when the bell rings three times, it’s time to move on. Ding, ding, ding. Time to move to the next table, the next meeting, the next transfer.
“There’s a lot of important information being exchanged before the transfer window,” says Simon Ankersen, TransferRoom’s director of football relations, as he observes the flurry of activity from a balcony.
After two intense days, every club and agent here hopes to have gathered enough information to ensure a successful summer. For some players, these conversations will lead to a transfer and the next step in their careers.
“We can meet with clubs from around the world in one room,” says a scout at a top-six Premier League club. “Part of it is the formal meetings, but also having coffee, catching up, getting some information, and making new contacts that could lead to something in the future.”
“Making connections is how things get done”
TransferRoom began in 2017 as an online platform specifically tailored for clubs, inspired by other web-based marketplaces like Zillow and Rightmove. It allowed recruitment teams to quickly identify available players and understand what other clubs were seeking.
“We realized very quickly it was a very relationship-driven industry, and face-to-face meetings are extremely valuable,” says Ankersen. “We did our first event in 2018 with probably only 50 clubs at an event in London. It’s grown very quickly.”
In the past, many clubs struggled in the transfer market due to a lack of transparency and market access. Selling clubs didn’t know what positions buying clubs were looking for, their budget, or who to contact. They relied on their own networks and intermediaries. Buying clubs didn’t know which players were available, the cost, or the player’s agent.
“Here, you can meet 300 clubs in two days and be very efficient,” Ankersen adds.
On the first morning in Berlin, housekeeping rules are laid out in a PowerPoint presentation. “Each meeting is only 15 minutes, so be on time,” says one slide. “Listen for the bell to move to your next meeting,” reads another.
Six hours of meetings are scheduled over two days, with breaks for lunch and refreshments. Some meetings focus on specific players, while others are about introductions and exchanging contact information. Nearly 3,500 formal meetings will be booked over the two days.
Sassano arrived from the U.S. on Monday morning, had a quick power nap, and was ready for his first engagement. He expects to hold around 30 formal 15-minute meetings during his time in Germany. Including informal networking over coffee or drinks, he estimates it could reach close to 100. For some, networking continues into Berlin’s bars and clubs until the early hours of Tuesday morning.
For FC Union Berlin, it’s a short six-mile journey, but for others, it’s more challenging. Mitsushiro Obara, general manager at FC Tokyo, has flown over 5,000 miles to attend. It’s worth it when considering the time and air miles it would take to meet all his counterparts individually.
“By coming here, we can get a lot of access at one time from many different sources,” Obara tells ESPN. “That’s where we see the main value. Just speaking geographically, Japan is far away, and it limits our access to information. This event breaks down barriers and opens up communication with clubs we wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to meet.”
“There are a lot of good connections here,” Luiz Muzzi, general manager of Orlando SC, tells ESPN. “Sometimes you can get a deal done, sometimes not, but you make the connection and you end up doing something later on.”
“Making connections is how you get things done. It opens up new chances to speak to clubs you otherwise wouldn’t get to talk to. Maybe it’s Turkey or Slovakia or Japan. We wouldn’t get a chance to talk to those guys on a daily basis.”
“The first 60 seconds sets the tone”
Deals are rarely signed, sealed, and delivered here, but this is often where they start. Viktor Gyökeres‘ move from Coventry City to Sporting CP in 2023 began when Hugo Viana contacted Coventry through TransferRoom before setting up in-person talks with the striker’s agency, HCM Sports Management.
Gyökeres has scored 83 goals in 91 games since his move to Portugal and has been linked with another big transfer this summer, likely to a bigger European league. There are plenty of clubs in Berlin with reason to schedule time with Sporting CP.
Other deals that started at TransferRoom include Antoine Semenyo‘s move from Bristol City to Bournemouth in 2023, and U.S. international Daryl Dike‘s switch from Orlando City to West Bromwich Albion in 2022. It’s estimated that more than 6,500 transfers have been facilitated by either the online platform or the face-to-face summits over the past eight years, though each one is different.
The big Premier League clubs are here primarily to gauge interest in players they want to offload or find pathways for younger players to gain experience at different clubs in different leagues. Will Dickson’s loan move from Manchester City to Motherwell and Amar Fatah’s loan move from Troyes, a club within the City Football Group, to Willem II were both completed after conversations made possible by TransferRoom.
“For the biggest Premier League clubs, it’s probably stronger for loans,” a scout at a Premier League top-six club tells ESPN. “We can meet clubs where he could potentially place a young player. We primarily use TransferRoom for that.”
“Since the pandemic, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have become a lot more popular, but we still like to get in front of people. Shake their hand, see their body language. It’s the best way. I’ve just strategically chosen to accept people that I wanted to see. I’ve just met two Brazilian agents and connected them with our guys in South America. They didn’t previously know each other, but now that communication is open.”
Other clubs have a more specific approach. Some are looking to recruit players to fill certain positions, or are hoping to drum up interest in players they want to move on ahead of the summer window.
With a minute to go before each meeting ends, the bell rings. It signals that there’s 60 seconds to stand up, shake hands, check the app, and move to their next assigned table.
“Every meeting is different,” one Premier League recruitment specialist tells ESPN. “Our conversations are mostly about what profiles and positions we’ll be looking for in the next window and beyond.”
“Another part is to meet people in different regions where we might not have many contacts. We want to get chatting to agencies in regions that we’ve targeted: it’s about gaining an understanding of that region.”
“If I’ve set the meeting, I’ve always had an agenda. Why have we done it? Who are we going to talk about? The first 60 seconds sets the tone. You know then whether you’re going to get something out of it.”
It can be a complicated business. Stockport County are in the play-off positions in League One — English football’s third tier — and don’t know yet whether they’ll stay in the same division next season or play in the Championship, one step away from the Premier League.
“We’re working to multiple scenarios,” Dale Hagen, Stockport’s first team scouting operations manager, tells ESPN. “We’re looking at multiple lists, so a League One list and a Championship list. Some players fit on both lists, some don’t.”
“This is the work we’re doing in February, March, and April so when May hits and you’ve got your brief for the season ahead, you can then act on your list because your due diligence has been done. It makes us more efficient.”
“You can get information from 12 clubs in a day, and that’s not including the other networking outside the main room. I can go home and update on around 70 or 80 players.”
“Gathering information is the key thing”
Like Hagen, around 80% of the attendees in Berlin are attached to clubs. The rest come from agencies, who have steadily been allowed into the room to take part. For the agencies that made the journey to Berlin, the main goal is to pitch players. Conversations are focused on understanding what clubs are looking for and whether they’ve got a player in their system who fits the bill.
“Because it’s March, we already know which players are going to be out of contract and which players are potentially looking to move,” Brendan Lever, data and transfer analyst at SEG, tells ESPN. “I have a list of around 80 to 100 players, and then I try to plan meetings based on these players, the quality of the players, the expected transfer fees. Everything.”
“Gathering information is the key thing: Knowing what clubs are looking for, and how we could potentially match that. That’s our number one priority.”
Most of the preparation work done by SEG — who represent Rasmus Hojlund, Cody Gakpo, and Erik ten Hag, among others — is about being as targeted as possible with the clubs who have agreed to meet.
“It doesn’t make sense to meet with clubs in certain countries if we only have available players who are going to cost £10m because they can’t afford that,” says Lever. “It’s a lot of preparation beforehand: definitely a good starting point to mention some players and plant some seeds here and there.”
For agents, it’s about asking the right questions to make sure they can find the right player for the right club.
“Usually in the meetings, I’m asking what is the situation of the club,” Paolo Sardo, general manager of P&P Sport Management tells ESPN. “It’s really important to know the coach, the system of play, the squad. We know our players very well and we want our players to show all their potential in the right situation.”
“Then, I’m asking what are they searching for? In March, clubs are already preparing for the next season so we can understand their situation.”
The work doesn’t stop once the meetings end. “Usually after the summit it takes a few days to send all the players through and then a sporting director will pass the lists to his scouts,” says Lever.
“We have a big network (around 130 agents), but it’s about maximizing it. If a player gets one or two offers or he gets four or five, that’s a much better choice. That’s what we’re trying to get here. We can get players on the map for quite a few clubs.”
For now, TransferRoom is limited to well-established agencies, but others still make the trip. Agents without access to the main room hang out in the Estrel Hotel lobby hoping to grab a sporting director or general manager on their way out. If they can get a player’s name in the head of the right person, then you never know what might happen.
The hope for everyone in Berlin — whether in the main meeting room, the networking area, or the lobby — is that the conversations lead to transfer business in the summer.
“I’m here without a pass,” one agent tells ESPN. “I won’t get 15 minutes, but I might get 10 seconds to mention a player or swap numbers. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get something started.”
The next summit is in Buenos Aires, Argentina in June before another in Madrid, Spain in early August. Scheduled for the middle of the summer window, the Madrid meeting is branded as a “deal day” when the talk becomes more about getting transfers over the line ahead of the European transfer deadlines at the end of the month. For now, with two months left of the current European campaign, the conversations are focused on laying the groundwork.
“Recruitment is the area of a club that can make the most money, but it can also cost you the most money,” says Hagen.
On Tuesday evening, while the last formal meetings are being held, two smart, suited men are stood talking at one of the tall tables in the networking area. Laptops are open and notebooks are out alongside two small glasses of beer.
The conversation, between the sporting director of a Swiss top-flight club and a member of a Premier League recruitment team, has turned to a player the Swiss club believes is ready to make the step up to one of Europe’s top-five leagues. They want to cash in and they’re keen to learn whether the team in question is looking for a player of his age, position, and profile. Notes are taken, data inputted, and the meeting ends with a handshake and the promise to keep in touch.
Next door, the bell rings for the final time and the summit officially comes to a close.
Lever expects “99%” of the conversations to come to nothing. Sometimes, though, the seed of an idea turns into something bigger.
“It can happen very quickly,” he says. “We’ve had some deals in the past like Mark Flekken, the Brentford goalkeeper, that started at a TransferRoom summit. That was a big deal for us and great for him to get to the Premier League.”
“The seed of that started at a summit, but then there’s so much work to do after. Everyone has to agree — the clubs, the player, the agent. It’s about planting seeds everywhere.”
Originally Written by: Rob Dawson
