GM, Free Agents.

Welcome to the The Free Transfer— the 5-min daily newsletter making you smarter about football.

Happy Wednesday. The summer transfer window officially opens today. I know, sparks are already flying— but this is just the beginning.

Quick but very important one today:

• Reliability guide for the transfer window 🗺️🥇

  • Reliable sources

  • Unreliable sources

  • Golden Rule

NAVIGATING THE TRANSFER WINDOW 🗺️ 

Below, we have included some of the “transfer reliability tiers” provided by different teams’ subreddits, Twitter, etc.

They may differ a bit with journalists specialized in a specific team or league, but the larger picture becomes clear very quickly.

Here are some of the internet’s “best” guides to the transfer window ⤵️ 

As you can see, this is very subjective depending on the club or league.

But in general, there are some consistencies that one can pick up on & use.

Journalists🕵️‍♂️ > Publications📰 

Every good newspaper is only as good as its journalists.

One thing that we need to remember going into the window is that it is the journalist’s work, which is included in a publication’s article. The journalists have their sources, not the newspaper itself.

The Free Transfer’s simple tier system 🔼🔽 

This is based on years of following the transfer market, but is always open to change! Would gladly take recommendations in the comment section or @TheFreeTransfer on Twitter.

We only track Tier 1 & Tier 2 because generally anything below that is not worth your time. There are the odd hit-or-miss journalists which are below these, but it’s worth waiting until one of the higher-tier journalists confirms it until you get your hopes up.

Fans of Spanish or French teams/leagues may be disappointed to not see representatives from their leagues, but in recent years there have been declines in the reliability of their best reporters (Gerrard Romero (LaLiga), Mohammed Bouhafsi (Ligue 1)).

Who to avoid 🙅 

Twitter “in the knows”

1. There are some of these accounts that hit one time because they knew someone close to a player, then make a career off of spinning lies after that.

2. They are generally anonymous, & report news suspiciously similar to top tier reporters just seconds after those reporters do.

3. Anyone can do guesswork— these accounts prey on peoples’ gullibility. Sure, they may have “called” a transfer before a reliable journalist, but they don’t have special information. They are just making an educated guess.

4. They will often point to their track record of guesses— while simultaneously deleting/suppressing older, incorrect Tweets.

Prime example: IndyKaila

Historically clickbaity publications

1. The Daily Star, The Sun, La Repubblica, Mundo Deportivo, poor talk shows, you get the memo…

Golden Rule 🥇 

Just wait for Fabrizio Romano to say “here we go” or for David Ornstein to drop an exclusive. Once that happens, the deal is as good as done.

That’s all for today folks. Use this simple guide to navigate the choppy waters of the summer transfer window.

Cheers,

—The Gaffer