BERLIN, Germany — In the Estrel Hotel, a 20-minute drive to the southeast of the German capital, in a room filled with 160 numbered desks, officials from more than 300 clubs and representatives of more than 80 agencies are gathered to talk transfers.
There are owners and general managers, sporting directors and scouts, agents and data analysts. All of them arranging and engaging in 15-minute, face-to-face meetings with the goal of getting ahead of the game before the summer transfer window opens. “I say to my wife it’s like speed dating,” says Luke Sassano, chief scout at Major League Soccer’s Nashville SC.
Welcome to TransferRoom, where football’s transfer market goes into overdrive.
Nashville SC are one of 12 MLS clubs represented. There are 17 from the Premier League, including each of the big six — Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham. Others from around the world include Ajax, Roma, Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig, Sporting CP and Galatasaray. All in all, there are 303 clubs from 73 leagues in 47 countries packed into one room.
Meetings are arranged via an app, which assigns a table number — the room looks and feels like a giant chess tournament given the precise layout of tables and chairs — to proceedings once both sides have agreed a time. In the room, a digital clock on a giant green screen hanging overhead 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,” TransferRoom director of football relations Simon Ankersen tells ESPN, as he stands on a balcony overlooking the flurry of activity below.
After two intense days, every club and agent here is hoping to have learned enough to make sure they can have a successful summer. For some players, the conversations being had 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 life in 2017 as an online platform specifically tailored for clubs, taking its inspiration from other web-based marketplaces like real estate sites Zillow and Rightmove. It allowed recruitment teams to quickly identify which players were available and find out what other clubs were looking for.
“We realised very quickly it was a very relationship-driven industry and the face-to-face meetings are extremely valuable,” says Ankersen. “We did our first event in 2018. Probably only 50 clubs — if that — at an event in London. It’s grown very quickly.
“In the past we saw that a lot of clubs were struggling in the transfer market, primarily because of a lack of transparency and a lack of market access. Selling clubs didn’t know what positions buying clubs were looking for, what their budget was, who to speak to at the club. They were relying on their own networks and having to rely on intermediaries. Buying clubs didn’t know which players were available, to buy or to loan, how much it was going to cost, who was the player’s agent.
“Here, you can meet 300 clubs in two days and be very efficient.”
On the first morning in Berlin, the housekeeping rules are laid out in a PowerPoint presentation at the opening of the event. “Each meeting is only 15 minutes, so be on time,” says one slide. “Listen for the bell to move to your next meeting,” reads the next.
Six hours of meetings are scheduled — three hours on Monday and three hours on Tuesday — with breaks for lunch and refreshments in between. Some meetings have been organised to talk about a specific player. Other times, it’s as simple as making an introduction and getting a phone number. In total, nearly 3,500 formal meetings will be booked over the course of the two days.
Sassano arrived from the U.S. on Monday morning, had a quick power nap, and was quickly ready for his first enagement. He expects to hold around 30 formal 15-minute meetings during his time in Germany. When he adds in conversations in the less formal networking area — over coffee in the afternoon, or the beer and wine that’s brought out at the end of the day — he estimates it could get close to 100. For some, the networking spills out into Berlin’s bars and clubs until the early hours of Tuesday morning.
It’s a short six-mile journey for FC Union Berlin to attend, but for others, it’s a bit more difficult. Mitsushiro Obara, general manager at FC Tokyo, has flown more than 5,000 miles to attend. It’s worth it when he factors in the time and air miles it would take to meet all of 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”
1:34
How transfer ‘speed dating’ helped Viktor Gyökeres to Sporting
Rob Dawson explains the concept of TransferRoom on “The Football Reporters” podcast, and how it helped Coventry City agree a deal for Viktor Gyökeres with Sporting.
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.
Gyokeres 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’s 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 around 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 maximising 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 believe 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.”
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