Clubs are taking a loan of the system
IF UEFA wants to get serious about it’s Financial Fair Play rules, Europe’s governing body should ban loan signings immediately.
Paris St Germain blatantly abused the system last Thursday when they signed Kylian Mbappe on a yearlong loan from fellow French club Monaco, which will be converted to a £166m permanent transfer next summer.
It’s not that PSG don’t have the money to buy the young striker outright immediately. But having already signed Neymar from Barcelona for £199m, they would have been punished by UEFA for over-spending.
PSG’s plan to circumvent the regulations is now under scrutiny by the governing body.
Another example of the system being abused is Chelsea presently having 39 players loaned out all over the world.
And it’s not just the heavyweights of European football who are taking advantage of a system that used to be for emergency signings only. It’s happening under our very noses in Scotland. When the transfer window closed at midnight on Thursday, Aberdeen’s last-gasp recruitment of Dominic Ball on loan from Rotherham brought the number of loanees in the Premiership to 23.
On top of that, there are more than 40 players currently on loan from their parent clubs playing in Scotland’s three lower divisions.
This indicates many top clubs have still to decide whether some of their younger players are good enough. Otherwise they’d be playing at the top or freed.
It also shows that our poverty-stricken outfits can only afford a short fix, and will quite happily sign players on loan today and worry about tomorrow when it comes.
Decades ago, Scottish teams were allowed to sign players on loan until the end of March if they proved to the authorities they had too many injured players to field a full eleven. Now it appears anything goes. There is currently an emergency-signing rule in place for teams in Scotland’s three lower divisions. The only criteria they have to meet is a minimum period of 28 days and a maximum period of 93 days for each signing.
Hibs, who eventually won the Championship title last season, took advantage by signing Kris Commons and Efe Ambrose on loan from Celtic.
So until there are proper rules in place, anomalies will continue to occur.
Surely there is something far wrong.