It was another former son of AS Monaco, Arsene Wenger, who made the prediction in 2017 that the future of the transfer market would be dominated as much by players running their contracts down as it would blockbuster fees shattering records each window.
“I think in the future, you will see it more and more. Why? Because the transfers are so high, even for normal players,” he said, as he entered the final campaign of his reign at Arsenal. “You will see more and more players going into the final year of the contract because no club will want to pay the amount demanded... in the next 10 years, it will become usual.”
Wenger’s logic was that the rate of inflation of transfer fees was such, and occupied by such a shrinking number of teams, that buying a player would become unaffordable or, at least, economically unviable so therefore teams would increasingly look to free agency. While players would know they’re best chance of maximising their value in contract terms, would be as a free agent, therefore it was in their own self-interest to see their contracts out, as opposed to pushing for a transfer.
