PREMIER LEAGUE: The transfer window provides a little fiscal egalitarianism in a sport driven by greed

SO NOW we know. According to statistics I have just made up, net whinging in this season’s January transfer window has risen to unprecedented new levels. Never before have we been subjected to as much moaning, griping and grousing from Premier League managers and there could yet be more to come; only when the clock strikes five this afternoon will the grumbles fall silent and an uneasy truce be declared.

There is only one way to combat this, of course, and that is to introduce a secondary, smaller window – about the size of a serving hatch, or a large cat flap – in which managers can complain about the transfer window.

Perhaps – and I am thinking very much on the hoof here – it could be held whenever the Full Moon happens to land in January and last precisely 24 hours. Even by today’s standards, that should be plenty of time for the likes of Harry Redknapp and Joe Kinnear to howl plaintively at being forced into panic-buying certified reprobates such as Pascal Chimbonda and Joey Barton at the sort of hyper-inflated prices that even a mother would baulk at.

The merest hint of a sulky protest outside this allotted period would be met with the harshest possible sanction, possibly involving taking Craig Bellamy on a six-month loan deal.

To me, this sounds eminently more sensible than the proposals currently being formulated by the League Managers’ Association, one of which is to make it possible for top-flight clubs to swap players of equivalent value at any time during the season.

Quite how such numbers are calculated remains a mystery; we are now living in a world where a holding midfield player with one season’s experience with Wigan is worth €17.9 million, while one of his former team-mates – England’s first-choice striker and a Premier League veteran – is valued at €4 million.

Do four Emile Heskeys really make up one Wilson Palacios? Tottenham Hotspur think so. And while Spurs, bless ’em, have always been football’s equivalent of the wide-eyed tourist who stumbles into a shanty town over-laden with expensive gadgets and with a fistful of cash sticking out of his back pocket, there must surely be something wrong in that.

Hopefully the LMA’s plans and the complaints of the managerial elite will be placed straight in Sepp Blatter’s overworked paper shredder. In the same way a roomful of typewriting monkeys will eventually produce a Shakespearean tragedy, so a gibbering Fifa executive is bound to come up with one decent notion amid all his other squeaks and squeals. In Blatter’s case, the transfer window might just be it.

In a sport which is, for the most part, fuelled by rampant commercial greed and self-interest, the window provides a little dash of fiscal egalitarianism. Confining the transfer market to one frantic 30-day period undeniably drives up prices but, thankfully, the main victims of this hyper-inflation are super-rich spendaholics such as Spurs and Manchester City.

Should we really be wasting time and energy expending sympathy to the likes of Daniel Levy’s Enic group or Abu Dhabi United’s oil barons when the window simply helps redistribute some of their vast wealth to the likes of Wigan, Portsmouth and West Ham? I say make them cough up every last petro-dollar and be grateful for the opportunity.

There is also a welcome trickle-down effect. My team, Crystal Palace, could barely stop the drool spilling down their chin last week when a suddenly cash-rich Wigan offered to write them a cheque for €2.3 million in exchange for their midfielder Ben Watson. Watson was due to become a free agent in the summer and although his age meant any deal would have gone to a tribunal, the compensation on offer to Palace would have been paltry in comparison.

This, of course, was the idea of the transfer window – to protect the smaller clubs, by ensuring their players could only be pilfered during a set period and for the maximum possible price, and thus repairing some of the damage inflicted by the inherently unfair Bosman ruling and the lax laws which allow youngsters to be shamelessly poached by the elite.

And that’s not all. Where else would we find any drama in the bleak Premier League midwinter? The title race has yet to kick on, Christmas has long since been forgotten in a fug of chocolate-related flab and credit card bills and the FA Cup is, quite frankly, rubbish.

Supporters need something to entertain them, and watching the likes of Redknapp and Mark Hughes dash around like idiots spending money with pre-credit crunch fervour at least raises a smile. It also enables Sky Sports News to pretend they are broadcasting a sporting version of 24, complete with ominous ticking clock, although with less torture and prettier presenters.

So, Sepp, stand firm against the carpers and keep your window open. We could all do with some fresh air.