Explained: The Premier League players who can sign a pre-contract agreement in January

As Trent Alexander-Arnold , Mohamed Salah , and Virgil van Dijk enter the final six months of their current contracts, clubs outside of the Premier League are watching with interest.

While Liverpool will be keen to re-sign three of their most important players before their contracts expire on June 30, the decision could be out of their hands.

As part of the groundbreaking 1995 Bosman ruling, clubs from other countries can discuss and finalise pre-contract agreements with players in England up to six months before the expiry of their current deals.

Advertisement With so many high-profile players set to be out of contract in the summer, talk of pre-contract agreements will undoubtedly enter your radar in the coming weeks and days.

To help you get your head around it all, The Athletic explains how it all works.

What is a pre-contract agreement? A pre-contract arrangement is when a player agrees to join a different club at the expiry of their current contract.

After the interested club provides written notice of their intent to do so, talks can begin up to six months before the expiry of a players current deal.

According to the English FAs regulations, breaches of this requirement can result in penalties.

However, interested clubs often covertly contact a players intermediaries without express warning to the players current club to discuss a potential recruitment strategy well in advance of initiating formal pre-contract discussions.

This six-month rule applies only to foreign clubs.

For example, a Spanish club can enter pre-contract discussions with a Premier League player in January before a potential summer transfer, but other Premier League clubs cannot.

When it comes to domestic free-agent transfers in England, a club cannot engage with a player playing for another club until they have entered the final month of their contract.

Article 18.3 of FIFA s regulations for transfers states: A club intending to conclude a contract with a professional must inform the players current club in writing before entering into negotiations with him.

A professional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if his contract with his present club has expired or is due to expire within six months.

Any breach of this provision shall be subject to appropriate sanctions.

In England, this rule applies exclusively when trying to sign players at clubs in other countries.

But individual football associations are responsible for overseeing their own domestic transfers and can therefore allow pre-contracts between clubs and players based in the same nation.

How long have pre-contract agreements been around? Pre-contract agreements were part of the 1995 Bosman ruling on the freedom of movement of professional footballers.

The rule is named after Jean-Marc Bosman, a Belgian footballer who wanted to transfer from RFC Liege in the Belgian first division to the French second-tier club Dunkerque after his contract in Belgium had expired.

Advertisement Before the Bosman ruling took effect, players could not walk away from a club at the expiry of their contract.

For a player to move on at the end of the deal, the interested clubs would either pay a fee to their current club or rely on that club allowing the player to walk away for free.

In Bosmans case, Liege demanded a transfer fee from Dunkerque after his contract expired in 1990, and the French club were unwilling to meet their valuation.

When the deal fell through, Bosman had his wages cut by 75 per cent and was banned by the Belgian FA for not signing Lieges contract proposal.

Five years later, Bosman won a ruling against the Belgian FA, RFC Liege, and UEFA , citing the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which guaranteed the free movement of workers in the European Union.

As part of the Bosman ruling, players with six months remaining of their current contract were permitted to begin negotiations with other clubs.

What are the benefits? Like signing a player after their contract has expired, a club benefits by not having to pay a transfer fee.

One of the most high-profile examples of a pre-contract agreement from the Premier League is Aaron Ramsey s transfer to Juventus in 2019.

Before committing to the Italian club, Ramsey had reported discussions with Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain , but he opted to join Juventus, who offered the Welshman a contract worth a reported 400,000 per week .

Based on his basic salary, the deal made Ramsey the highest-earning British player in history.

At the time, this arrangement was viewed as beneficial for the player and the club, with Juventus signing a top Premier League player without paying a transfer fee and Ramsey leveraging that situation to earn a large salary.

The club also benefits from being able to secure a players future before the summer without interference from domestic clubs.

Is this rare? While the Bosman rule is frequently used to sign players after their contracts expire, pre-contract agreements are relatively rare in English football.

Southampton exercised its functions to sign Brazilian duo Welington and Juan, who are set to join the south coast club from Sao Paulo in January after agreeing terms in July 2024.

Still, they remain one of the few clubs to have used the mechanism in the Premier League.

In the mens game, players leaving England for other leagues in this fashion does not happen often, but its becoming more frequent on the womens side.

In April 2024, Ellie Roebuck signed a pre-contract agreement to join Barcelona , leaving WSL side Manchester City after eight years.

In a landscape where players are offered shorter contracts and players move upon the expiry of their deals more frequently compared to the Premier League, pre-contract agreements fit well in the womens game.

Advertisement However, in countries where the pre-contract agreement mechanism is not applied exclusively to foreign clubs, they are used much more routinely.

Famously, Robert Lewandowski signed a pre-contract agreement to join Bayern Munich from Borussia Dortmund in January 2014, leaving one of Germanys biggest clubs for another.

How does it compare to Free Agency in the NBA and NFL ? American sports operate in an entirely different sporting sphere to European soccer, but there are some similarities.

First, similar rules regarding tampering exist in the Premier League, the NBA, and the NFL.

Tampering rules prevent members of an organisation from engaging in discussions with a player to recruit them to their team.

This includes formal discussions between executives and owners and players representatives, as well as informal player-to-player exchanges and coach-to-player dialogue.

Regarding free agency the period at the end of a players contract where they are free to pursue contract offers from other franchises discussions are not permitted until the first day of the free agency period, which usually falls on the last day of June.

However, like in the Premier League, it is an open secret in the NBA and NFL that breaches of the tampering rules occur frequently.

It is very difficult for the league to police conversations between players and members of another franchise, and players representatives blur lines in all three leagues.

Last summer, the NFL sanctioned the Atlanta Falcons for improper conduct in approaching quarterback Kirk Cousins as well as wide receiver Darnell Mooney and tight end Charlie Woerner before signing the 36-year-old to a four-year contract.

For violating the anti-tampering policy, the Falcons forfeited their original fifth-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft and paid a $250,000 fine.

However, the salary cap in the NFL and NBA means a greater emphasis is placed on free agency than in the Premier League.

There are set periods where trades (typically involving other players, future draft picks and minor cash considerations) can occur in those American leagues, but there is no transfer window where clubs recruit players from other clubs for significant fees.

This means players move more frequently at the expiry of their contracts in the NBA and NFL than in the Premier League.

Which Premier League players contracts expire this summer? Arsenal : Kieran Tierney , Thomas Partey , Jorginho Aston Villa : Robin Olsen , Kortney Hause Bournemouth : N/A Brentford : Ben Mee , Christian Norgaard *, Josh Dasilva * Brighton & Hove Albion: Tariq Lampety, Joel Veltman , Jakub Moder , James Milner Chelsea : N/A Crystal Palace : Remi Matthews , Nathaniel Clyne , Joel Ward , Will Hughes , Jeffrey Schlupp Advertisement Everton : Asmir Begovic , Joao Virginia *, Michael Keane , Mason Holgate , Ashley Young , Seamus Coleman , Abdoulaye Doucoure *, Idrissa Gueye , Dominic Calvert-Lewin Fulham : Kenny Tete , Tom Cairney , Adama Traore *, Raul Jimenez * Ipswich Town : Cameron Burgess , Luke Woolfenden , Massimo Luongo Leicester City : Danny Ward , Daniel Iversen , Jamie Vardy Liverpool: Virgil van Dijk, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah Manchester City: Scott Carson , Ilkay Gundogan *, Kevin De Bruyne Manchester United : Tom Heaton , Victor Lindelof , Jonny Evans , Harry Maguire *, Amad* Newcastle United : Martin Dubravka , John Ruddy , Mark Gillespie , Fabian Schar , Jamaal Lascelles , Emil Krafth , Sean Longstaff *, Callum Wilson * Nottingham Forest : Harry Toffolo , Ola Aina , Chris Wood Southampton: Joe Lumley , Kyle Walker-Peters , Adam Lallana Tottenham Hotspur : Fraser Forster , Sergio Reguilon , Ben Davies *, Son Heung-min * West Ham United : Lukasz Fabianski *, Aaron Cresswell , Vladimir Coufal , Danny Ings , Michail Antonio Wolverhampton Wanderers : Craig Dawson , Nelson Semedo , Mario Lemina *, Pablo Sarabia * There are known clauses for clubs to trigger a one-year extension (Top photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images).

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