LONDON: English Premier League clubs are set to discuss whether to shut the transfer window before the start of the 2018-19 season when they meet next month, British media have reported.

Representatives from the 20 top-flight clubs are due to attend a shareholders meeting on September 7 with the majority pushing for a new, earlier, transfer deadline to be introduced.

Talks are expected to take place between all the clubs about whether to change the end of the window, which currently closes on Aug. 31 nearly three weeks after the first game.

It will be proposed that the transfer deadline is brought forward to the week before the start of the 2018-19 Premier League season, The Daily Telegraph reported on its website.

British media said the majority of Premier League clubs favour an earlier window closure, with the approval of at least 14 of the 20 required for a new rule to be introduced.

Part of the reason is to avoid internal discord affecting certain clubs once the season is off and running.

Several top players are in dispute with their present clubs.

Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk is one such case with the Dutch international defender training on his own as several higher profile clubs chase his signature, while Icelandic star Gylfi Sigurdsson is another who is seeking a 50 million (55m euros, $65m) move to Everton.

Swansea City manager Paul Clement, who has left Sigurdsson out of the squad having been unsettled by repeated bids from Everton, spoke about the window after Saturday’s draw at Southampton in their opening game.

“It would be a better situation if the window closed before the start of the season and then people know that they have got their group for the first game — they are available, they aren’t available,” Clement told a news conference.

“I know there are talks about changing that for the future and my opinion is that it should be changed. Before the first game you should know who you have got and who you haven’t got.

“At our managers’ meeting at the Premier League ... we spoke about it. The majority of clubs are in favour, but maybe all have to be for it to go through.”

The proposals would not affect transfers from Premier League clubs to other European leagues or vice versa, thus Diego Costa and Philippe Coutinho’s desire for moves from respectively champions Chelsea to Atletico Madrid and Liverpool to Barcelona could still go ahead.

Influential agent Jonathan Barnett told the newspaper he doesn’t think the proposals would stop clubs making last day panic buys.

“It makes sense and could make clubs more focused to do their deals early, but there will still be a deadline which creates panic,” he told the newspaper.

The January transfer window would be unaffected.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2017