All transfer data provided in this report relates exclusively to international transfers of professional football players within the scope of 11-a-side football. The numbers that feature in this report have been rounded. All data is based on individual transaction data provided directly by football clubs and associations in the FIFA Transfer Matching System (TMS).
Reporting period
Transfer data has been analysed for all transfers between 1 June 2024 and 2 September 2024. The data is updated daily. When making comparisons with previous years, we used the interval from 1 June to the last day of the official registration period of most European associations, i.e. 5 October for 2020, 31 August for 2021 and 1 September for 2022 and 2023.
Transfer date
For the purposes of this report, the transfer date is defined as either the date on which the engaging association requested the International Transfer Certificate (ITC) or, if the transfer does not require an ITC, as the date on which the transfer first reached one of the four completed statuses in TMS (“Closed”, “Closed – awaiting payments”, “On loan – awaiting conclusion”, “On loan – awaiting payments”). Only transfers with a transfer date within the reporting period are included in the report.
Pending transfers
For the purposes of this report, we distinguish between completed and pending transfers. A transfer is considered completed if it has reached one of the four completed statuses in TMS (see Transfer date above). Pending transfers are transfers for which the ITC was requested by the player’s new association before the end of the reporting period, but the ITC has not yet been received and the player has not yet been registered by the new association and their status in TMS is one of “Awaiting ITC delivery”, “Awaiting ITC receipt”, “Awaiting response to rejection of ITC request”, “Awaiting confirmation of provisional registration”, “Awaiting registration confirmation”, “The ITC request has been rejected by the former association and the rejection has been disputed by the new association”, “Awaiting judgment” or “Awaiting notification of decision”.
Transfer fees
All references to transfer fees in this report are to the sum of all fixed, conditional and release (buyout) fees as declared in TMS. All fees are treated as upfront payments for calculation purposes, notwithstanding any instalment plans that may be agreed by clubs. All amounts are automatically converted into USD based on the conversion rate on the day when the transfer instruction was entered in TMS. The aggregate amounts of transfer fees spent and received are shown for each confederation and association unless the clubs from the respective region completed only one incoming or outgoing transfer that included a transfer fee.
Transfer types
We distinguish between four types of international transfers:
Out of contract: when players who are no longer contractually bound to any former club sign an employment contract with a new club in a different association and no transfer agreement between clubs has been signed.
Loan: when players are temporarily engaged by a new club: a) on the basis of a loan agreement between the club with which they have an employment contract and a club of another association, during the term of their employment contract with their parent club; or b) when the loan is extended by the new club with the agreement of the parent club.
Return from loan: when players return to their parent club after a loan spell at another club.
Permanent: when players are permanently engaged by a new club and a transfer agreement is signed between the new club and the former club, or when a club permanently engages players it has had on loan, with the agreement of the former club.