Deadline Day: The Inside Story Of Football’s Transfer Window

by Jim White, Kaveh Solhekol

For three months every year football clubs buy and sell human beings. They spend more than £4 billion a year on footballers. The right deal can help you win you the game's top prizes, the wrong deal can cost you your job and bankrupt your club. Jim White and Kaveh Solhekol are two of the world's leading transfer experts. Let them take you behind the scenes into this murky, cutthroat, winner-takes-all, billion-pound world.

Jim and Kaveh have some of the best contacts in the business. In Come and Get Me they will talk to the world's most famous players, managers and agents to take you to the heart of the deals that happened and the ones that got away. Names Jim and Kaveh will speak to for the book Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Jorge Mendes, Mino Raiola, Jonathan Barnett, Kia Joorabchian, Harry Kane, Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling and manty, many more.

But has the time come for football to slam shut the window for good? Isn't it immoral to buy and sell humans? Why doesn't football have a draft system like the NFL? Jim and Kaveh will speak to leading NFL owners such as Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots to find out how they do things in the USA to answer these questions integral to the future of the game.

Genres: Sports

336 pages, Hardcover

Published February 20, 2024

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, I didn't know what to expect from the book but this was different to what I was expecting.

Going in I thought it was going to be more about transfers and the madness of Deadline Day, a peek behind the scenes. It is a sort of biography on Jim White and his journey of being a journalist/transfer reporter. It does get somewhat repetitive with key concepts being repeated such as get to know people, get contacts and numbers and stories sell and give stability to the profession. Stories of new deals etc not flowery prose.

A decent read but could have been better and more in depth.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like to say this, but this would have made a much better podcast series, or long-running talkSPORT segment. Kaveh seems to be the one lumbered with transcribing Jim's blethering, a lot of it circuitous and repetitive (all the better to hit the word count - I groaned when he defined 'rumour' and 'gossip'). The best chapter is the one where the pair hand over to an anonymous agent. Lots of memoir from Jim which is more about him than transfer business. Nige Tassell's book Boot Sale is a far better bet. Also, if you've paid £25 for this, you are a fool.

[William Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as I thought it would be.

[Katy Galligan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing of much interest in this book. found it more of a hurrah to himself and his achievements in his broadcasting career . A self absorbed read by jim white.

[David Spence · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly repetitive, not as much of a deep dive as it could’ve been

[Karen Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing and repetitive.