Windows are won in the weeks before they open. The agents who look calm on deadline day are the ones who did the boring work in June. The mandate renewals, the paperwork, the quiet conversations with sporting directors who were not yet buying.

Eight weeks out: audit your roster

List every player, their contract end date, their mandate end date and their appetite to move. Anything expiring within twelve months is a decision waiting to happen. Either you renew it, or someone else has that conversation for you.

Six weeks out: fix the paperwork

Passports, work permits, registration documents, previous contracts. Every one of these has ended a deal at some point, and none of them are hard to collect when nobody is under pressure.

Four weeks out: open the conversations

Log every club that shows interest, however soft, with the terms discussed and how warm it felt. Interest that lives only in your head cannot be compared, prioritised or handed to a colleague when you are on a flight.

The window: one screen, not six group chats

Deadline day punishes anyone whose deal state lives across WhatsApp, email and memory. Whatever system you use, the rule is the same, one place where the stage, the money and the next action are true.

After the window: close the loop

Invoice the commission, file the signed contracts, diarise the instalments and the clauses that trigger later. The next window starts the day this one closes.