TransferRoom is a great tool to have an overview of what’s going on in the market. It opens up markets that I haven't been very active in and it’s a great platform to communicate with clubs who are interested in one of your players.
Solbakken, who owns the Dynamic Solutions agency, moved Erik Botheim from Bodø/Glimt to FC Krasnodar for a fee of around NOK 80m (€8m) in what is the biggest transfer out of the Norwegian top-flight.
TransferRoom’s PlusPitch feature was the starting point for the ground-breaking transfer.
“The PlusPitch helps to promote the players and helps to get in contact with the club,” said Solbakken. “From the first initial contact and interest to actually closing the deal, there was more direct contact offline.
“But definitely it was very, very important to promote Erik Botheim, to get in contact with Krasnodar and to make the interest real. It may even be that that particular club did not know the player until we pitched him to them. So the PlusPitch is super important at the start of a deal to spark some interest.”
Doing business in multiple jurisdictions is complex for agents. You need to have an overview of what different clubs in different markets are looking for in the transfer market, and then you often have to rely on local intermediaries to get deals over the line.
But TransferRoom provides direct access to football dealmakers everywhere, making potential transfers easier to negotiate, even for an agent with 20 years’ worth of contacts like Solbakken.
“TransferRoom is a great tool to have an overview of what’s going on in the market. It opens up markets that I haven't been very active in and it’s a great platform to communicate with clubs who are interested in one of your players” Solbakken explained.
“My whole business ID is to have contacts all over Europe… If there's a club in Portugal that needs a player, who do I call in Portugal? Same in England. You need a network. I think I know everybody working in football.
“But the process for each transfer depends a bit. I have partners all over the world. It can be partners from time-to-time and deal to deal, so it’s not a set system. There are some countries where it’s more difficult than others to do deals, but that’s purely language barriers.”
He continued: “For sure I can make clubs aware of some potential deals on TransferRoom.”