Cutting intermediaries out of the conversation

For Club Deportivo Magallanes in Chile, their transfer business has always been dominated by deals with fellow sides in Latin America.

Leaning heavily on their existing network while having to rely on intermediaries to get each transfer over the line, Magallanes’ ability to generate interest and vital funds for the sales of their homegrown players to invest back into their first team had been restricted.

“As a Chilean club, it’s massively important to have a developed network at international level, create new relationships and maintain the ones we already developed thanks to the very efficient platform that is TransferRoom,” CD Magallanes Owner & President Cristian Ogalde says in the video below.

“The main characteristic I appreciate on TransferRoom is that you get in touch directly with Presidents or Sporting Directors without needing intermediaries in the communication between clubs. That gives huge value to how much your time is worth, because you speak directly to the relevant person.”

Quickly make clubs aware of your best players

That ability to talk directly manifested itself into a transfer at a TransferRoom Summit, when Magallanes Owner and President Cristian Ogalde held a one-to-one meeting with Flemming Berg, Sporting Director of South African club Mamelodi Sundowns.

Negotiations were opened over the potential sale of  Marcelo Allende, a player that the Chilean club joint-owned with Uruguay’s Montevideo City Torque.

That meeting took 15 minutes.

Within 15 days, the $3million sale of Allende was completed, with Sundowns acquiring 80% of the rights for the attacking midfielder.

It was a first deal on TransferRoom for both Magallanes and Sundowns, which joined world football's marketplace to avoid wasting time and money on scouting and recruitment.

Ogalde explains: “It was a great opportunity to showcase a quality player who maybe not many clubs in the world were aware of.

“Then the timing was right with the TransferRoom Summit in Madrid to sit down with clubs and discuss talents. When I sat down with Mamelodi Sundowns, they told me what they were looking for and I presented the profile of Marcelo Allende.

“Two days later, they already had all the information about the player and they had verified everything I told them about him.

“I believe it was an amazing opportunity for Mamelodi Sundowns and ourselves to meet and this was thanks to the TransferRoom Summit. TransferRoom has a great added value for us, as a country which is very far away, to look for opportunities on the transfer market.”

Reliable platform to showcase talents

And it is that instant access to key executives at clubs all over the world which is important for Magallanes and Ogalde, as well as the trustworthy, real-time player data and clubs’ requirements, meaning they no longer need to depend on third parties and unreliable market information to get their transfer business done.

“With TransferRoom, I find myself in a huge airport of football clubs, where we all land on the same day and at the same time with the same intention to make the football market more simple,” Ogalde adds.

“We want CD Magallanes to be a great platform for South American players to show themselves and their talent. TransferRoom has a fundamental role, as the platform gathers decision makers for player recruitment and sales in a clear, fast and efficient way.

“This allows the club to use the service to show our talents, make them visible for clubs who are looking for young talents in South America and it's a solution that facilitates the task of finding these players."