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A meeting of Europe’s top coaches has called on UEFA to unify the transfer window across the continent.
The annual gathering in Switzerland was attended by the likes of Jose Mourinho, Unai Emery and Arsene Wenger, as well as Massimiliano Allegri of Juventus, Real Madrid’s Julen Lopetegui, and new Napoli manager Carlo Ancelotti.
This is in stark contrast to this season when the English and Italian windows closed a week apart, in line with the start of their respective seasons, whilst German, French and Spanish clubs were still able to do business until the end of August. Indeed, the Portuguese window is still open for another two weeks.
As The BBC reports, the same meeting saw those gathered propose that the away-goals rule should be scrapped for continental competitions because it was counter-productive. Rather than force teams playing away to attack, it encourages home teams to be more defensive, to avoid conceding a costly goal in the context of the overall tie.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.