Inside the winter window: Teenage investment reshapes the market
IMAGO | Jeremy Jacquet and Kader Meite earned Rennes over €90 million during the winter window, highlighting a shift in how clubs value youth and potential.
The Recap
Across Serie A, Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and the Saudi Pro League, the highest-fee January arrivals were overwhelmingly aged 21 or under. In the Premier League, the same directional trend holds at significantly higher price points.
Data Insight
The average transfer fee paid for 17-year-olds jumped to €5.4 million in the 2026 winter window, more than double any previous year in our five-year dataset.
Why It Matters
The willingness to allocate significant transfer budgets to teenagers is reshaping how the market operates, with implications for selling clubs, academy investment models, and financial sustainability.
The Perspective
If January is traditionally the most conservative transfer window, the dominance of youth among the top-fee arrivals across multiple leagues points to a structural repricing of how clubs value age and potential.
25 February 2026 - 5:00 PM
The January transfer window has always occupied an unusual place in football's calendar. It is the window where clubs act out of urgency rather than strategy, where panic buys to salvage a faltering season sit alongside opportunistic loans and short-term fixes. It is not, historically, where clubs make long-term bets on unproven teenagers. And yet that is exactly what happened this winter.
From Serie A to Ligu
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