Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
Portuguese side Sporting CP missed out on a deal to sign Nottingham Forest’s Jota Silva after missing the deadline for paperwork on deadline day.
The two clubs had reached an agreement on a €4.5million (£3.9m) loan deal, which included a €15.5m (£13.5m) option for Sporting to sign the winger on a permanent basis.
The 26-year-old, who joined Forest in a £5.9million transfer from Vitoria de Guimaraes in August 2024, always favoured a return to his native Portugal despite having interest from other clubs, including Botafogo of Brazil.
Jota, who made 31 Premier League appearances for Forest last season, had been the subject of a transfer enquiry from Sporting on August 6 but talks extended due to Forest preferring a permanent sale and the interest from elsewhere.
The agreement between Sporting and Forest was reached around 11pm in Portugal on Monday, an hour ahead of the Portuguese transfer deadline, with all parties keen to conclude the deal.
However, the paperwork from Sporting to register the agreement missed the deadline by a matter of minutes and the deal fell through.
Forest remain open to an exit for Jota, with the transfer windows in Turkey and Saudi Arabia among those still open beyond September 1.
Forest are keen to raise funds following a busy summer transfer window which saw 13 first-team squad arrivals, including the deadline day signings of Dilane Bakwa from Strasbourg, Botafogo’s Cuiabano and a loan move for Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko.
The arrivals of Bakwa, Omari Hutchinson and Dan Ndoye increased competition for winger slots in Nuno Espirito Santo’s side.
However, there was a significant discrepancy in when Portugal’s transfer window was due to close.
So, when did the Portuguese window close?
The 2025 summer transfer windows across western Europe were finalised on Monday.
The period in which Portuguese teams were sanctioned to sign players — defined as registering a new player who had been contracted to another club — ended at midnight on Monday, but FIFA’s online transfer window system recorded that the nation’s window for men’s professional football remained open until September 15.
Each FIFA member association decides upon their own official registration periods for each season of professional men’s and women’s football, alongside a window for non-professional football.
That data is collated on FIFA’s online system, which outlines the opening periods for each of those windows across all of its member nations, inputted by each national association.
The timing of the opening and closing of the transfer windows is at the discretion of each national football association. The date and time for these dates can vary between each window and there is no requirement for alignment.
FIFA’s website states: “The transfer season dates are entered in TMS by each member association. FIFA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy, completeness and reliability of the information provided by the member associations.”
The Athletic has contacted the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), the body which oversees all aspects of football in Portugal.
When do other transfer windows close?
England’s transfer window shut on Monday September 1 at 7pm, a move forward from the previous 11pm deadline.
Each of Europe’s ‘big five’ associations — England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France — all closed on September 1, with FIFA’s system showing that 11 of UEFA’s member nations shut on that date, including Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Gibraltar.
However, this list should also have included Portugal, whose window also closed on Monday but which was recorded on the FIFA system as September 15.
Last year, Portugal’s transfer window closed on September 2 — three days after the closing of the English window. In this year’s winter transfer window, Portugal’s window closed one day after England, on February 4.
The closing of men’s professional transfer windows varies from nation to nation. Each of the Netherlands, Norway and San Marino shut their windows on September 2, while 13 UEFA member nations — including the Republic of Ireland and Sweden — had closed prior to September.
There are a further 22 UEFA members whose windows remain open, with Turkey’s transfer registration period lasting through to September 11.
This also varies outside in Europe; with MLS clubs in the United States seeing their transfer window closed on August 21, while clubs in the Saudi Pro League, according to FIFA, having until Tuesday, September 23 to make signings.
(Top image of Jota Silva: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
Comments are closed.