Transfer matching system
Also called TMS
TMS is the system every international transfer passes through, in which both clubs enter the deal separately and the transfer only proceeds if the two entries match.
The design is the point. Each club enters its own instruction, and the system compares them. A transfer where the two sides have recorded different things does not proceed, which makes a certain kind of disagreement impossible to paper over and a certain kind of fabrication difficult.
It also carries the calendar. Associations must enter the dates of their competition period and their two registration periods into TMS at least twelve months before those dates come into force, and FIFA sets the dates for any association that fails to do so on time.
The practical consequence for an agency is that a deal is not done when it is agreed, or even when it is signed. It is done when both clubs have entered matching instructions and the registration follows. On the last day of a window that distinction is the entire game.
Worked example
Both clubs have signed. One has entered the loan end date as 30 June, the other as 31 May.
Nobody has done anything wrong and the transfer will not proceed. Someone has to notice, and the window closes at a fixed hour.
Related terms
- Matching exceptionA matching exception is the status a transfer takes in TMS when the clubs agree on the player and the clubs but not on the details, which prevents the transfer from going through.
- International transfer certificateAn international transfer certificate is the document the player’s former association sends to the new one, without which the new association cannot register the player at all.
- Registration periodA registration period, known everywhere as the transfer window, is one of the two annual periods fixed by each association during which players may be registered with a new club.