How TransferRoom deal is helping Denmark stay ahead of Sweden

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by Jonathan Rest

Having a bigger marketplace to sell your players naturally leads to more interest and bigger transfer fees, as Danish clubs can testify after two years on TransferRoom.

If you compare the transfer income to the size of the Danish league and the size of Denmark in general, it is considerable.

Claus Thomsen

CEO, Danish League Association

Beating the neighbours at transfers

Having daily global access to decision-makers and real-time intelligence has enabled the top two leagues in Denmark to be more financially successful in the transfer market than their Swedish counterparts.

That story looks set to continue, with a league-wide deal on TransferRoom having been renewed on a long-term basis.

According to data compiled by TransferRoom, the average fee over the last five years for player transfers out of Sweden is €220,000, compared with almost €500,000 in Denmark.

And the gap is growing: put simply, being on TransferRoom, with direct access to decision-makers in over 650 clubs from more than 60 countries, means Danish clubs can command even higher fees.

The Danish Superliga’s total revenue for sales in the transfer market since July 2020 (when the league-wide deal came into force) has been €138m, almost double that of the Swedish Allsvenskan (€65.9m).

With the industry showing signs of recovering from the pandemic, in 2021-22 alone Danish top-flight clubs made €105.3m (an average of €900k per player) in collective sales, while Allsvenskan sides earned €48.3m (€352k per player) in the same period.

The volume of transfer business being done on TransferRoom is having an impact here. Clubs in Denmark’s top two divisions sold close to 50 players abroad via the platform in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons , compared with 12 from Sweden’s top two leagues.

In the same period, Danish clubs have made 34 signings from international leagues on the platform while there have been 13 for Swedish sides.

Raising Denmark’s global profile

Being on TransferRoom has helped Danish clubs showcase their players to a greater number of global decision-makers and markets worldwide.

Indeed, an average of more than 96% of their total revenue from transfers in the last two years has been from international deals, up from a share of 79% in 2019-20.

The number of players moving from Denmark to foreign clubs has also gone up, from 149 in the two years prior to the TransferRoom league-wide deal, to 202 since.

Increased transfer revenue has given clubs the confidence to continue investing in young development, a policy that has resulted in a highly competitive national team at senior and age-grade levels.

“TransferRoom has absolutely helped the Danish clubs that have a much smaller international network, particularly those in the second tier, but also some in the first tier,” explained Claus Thomsen, CEO of the Danish League Association. “So it certainly helps to widen their networks.

“At the moment the Danish league has a very good reputation for player and talent development. If you compare the transfer income to the size of the Danish league and the size of Denmark in general, it is considerable.

“That, and the young talented players in the national team, stems from a systematic investment all clubs jointly made and there has been massive investment in getting organisations right, getting all the details right. There is increased attention on the Danish league internationally, especially its ability to develop talent and develop players, both young international ones that come to Denmark and young Danish players.”