Football Language: Free Transfer

The transfer window is open until the end of the month and so today’s football phrase is ‘free transfer‘. You can find more language of transfers here and try a transfer language quiz here. If you have any suggestions or questions then you can contact us at admin@languagecaster.com.

Free Transfer

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When a player moves from one club to another we call this a transfer. If a club pays another club money for the player then this is called the transfer fee but sometimes no money changes hands and so the exchange is known as a free transfer. When a player’s contract is up at one club then they can leave on a free transfer to another one. Sometimes (though now not too often), you will see the phrase ‘on a Bosman‘ used to describe this kind of transfer named after the first player to move in this fashion back in the 1990s. This means that a player can leave at the end of their contract with no fee exchanging hands between clubs – sometimes we might hear that a player is running down their contract so that they can leave for free or ‘on a free‘.

• Example: The player left the club on a free transfer after playing for more than ten years.
• Example: The striker left Arsenal for Man City on a Bosman.
• Example: Paul Pogba reaches verbal agreement to rejoin Juventus on free transfer (Guardian.co.uk, June 15 2022)

Related Vocabulary

• The language of transfers in 4 easy steps
• Transfer request
• Loan
• Transfer window
  
  

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