Game must take care with loan‘freebies’
LAST month, Crystal Palace became the first Premier League club to offer to loan their players to clubs in Leagues One, Two and the National League for free.
On the face of it, their young talent gains invaluable firstteam experience, while EFL clubs get a hot young prospect for nowt: sounds like a no brainer, right?
There’s a catch: if Palace’s players don’t start, for any reason other than injury, then they expect half of their player’s weekly wage to be paid.
In isolation it still doesn’t sound like a bad proposition and it’s one that appears to be gaining some traction.
The EFL is believed to hold positive views on the idea at a time when some EFL chairmen are raising concerns about the amount they are being asked to contribute toward the wages of Premier League loan players.
With competition for precocious young talent rife, Premier League clubs are feeling increasingly emboldened to make demands – be they financial, a percentage of game time given to their player, or even their position in the team.
Constraints
All the while, clubs further down the pyramid, operating under financial constraints, are becoming ever-more dependent on the loan market to fill their squads.
It’s a slightly disconcerting combination, but it feeds into a wider debate. When the England squad gathered this week ahead of games against Spain and Switzerland, the wider subject of opportunities for young English talent returned to the agenda. Gareth Southgate pointed out that English players have played just 30.4% of the 79,200 minutes in the Premier League so far this season. That figure drops closer to 20% at the Premier League’s ‘big six’ – and that’s players of all ages.
The transfer window shut at the end of August with 86 Premier League players having been loaned to clubs in the EFL. And with Premier League clubs increasingly stockpiling the best young players, that number is only likely to grow.
No one can dispute the benefits for a young player going on loan. I never went out on loan during my career but I wish Nottingham Forest had allowed me to experience lower league football as a youngster at one of the clubs who I later learned made an approach.
Our coaches always told us how good we had it. When I left to join Rotherham United in my early 20s, I realised how right they were.
There is value in opening an academy graduate’s eyes to the world in which the vast majority of footballers live, and to the competitive spirit of games a million miles from manicured academy pitches.
For evidence of that you need only look at the grounding of England’s recent World Cup squad. Of England’s starting line-up for their opening game against Tunisia, only three players – John Stones, Ashley Young and Raheem Sterling – had not gained experience out on loan in the EFL (though they also began at EFL clubs before making moves to the Premier League).
The other eight players went on loan to a combined 20 EFL clubs before becoming Premier League stars.
The EFL provides a mutually beneficial stage for them to blossom, but when clubs are making demands we should be careful about the direction of travel. The moment that there is potential for team selection to be influenced is a time to pause for thought.
Football is supposed to be a meritocracy but when a manager with a meagre budget has to decide between signing an experienced pro or a Premier League youngster for free, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know which option he may have to plump for.
Opportunity
Equally, if an opportunity for one player is passed up because a manager must fulfil a loan player’s quota of minutes, we are straying onto dangerous ground.
The career of a former teammate of mine was virtually ended in his early 30s in such a way. He and I joined Northampton Town in January 2014 and played almost every minute of the club’s rescue from League Two relegation.
When it came to handing out contracts for the next season, manager Chris Wilder told the player that budget constraints meant he would be taking a Premier League player who played his position on loan for next to nothing instead of extending his stay. Further down the pyramid, these deals can skew the landscape.
We are some way from EFL clubs becoming feeder clubs for the Premier League behemoths who hoard young talent.
Edin Rahic, the Bradford City chairman, is one to have thrown his weight behind such formal ties, despite the obvious fears among supporters about those who wear the shirt becoming transient visitors rather than ties and bonds forming between club and player.
Instead, are EFL clubs on a path towards becoming feeder clubs in all but name?