It’s generally public knowledge when a player’s contract is due to expire or how long they are with a club, and it can often be a good thing for the fans to know.
It’s a great PR move for a team if they manage to secure a big player to a new long term deal, it shows the fans that they are dedicated to the club and it provides some good feeling.
You could argue that a team like Real Madrid will rarely have to worry about losing a player on a free transfer, so this report is interesting:
MARCA reporting tonight that Real Madrid will no longer make public 1st team player contract extensions or the length of contracts, mirroring a practice adopted by OGC Nice in the latter sense for the last 18 months.
Might this be the beginning of a larger trend to come?
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) May 26, 2020
The main thing here is figuring out what the stand to gain. It’s possible that it could strengthen their negotiating position when selling a player as their contract length won’t come into it, but it’s naive to suggest the player or the agent won’t leak that information if it suits them.
Perhaps there’s a feeling that it will stop the press from speculating about contracts and it will let players purely focus on playing, but it’s hard to see this having a major impact.
This will also give players the chance to create tension by leaking these details themselves, so it could even lead to more chaos.