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The Loan System

Dicko

Edgar Davids
Does it still work?

Was chatting to an Ipswich mate at the weekend and it got me thinking just how crazy the loan system has become..
In the Summer his team struggled to sign all the players Paul Jewell promised and in August/September they ended up bringing in about 6 loans.. some games they had to leave one or 2 of them out of the matchday squads due to only being able to name a certain number in a matchday squad (I think it was something like 5 + 1 on the bench?)!! Luongo was eventually one of these casualties to my mates despair. He even said he'd be shocked if Spurs gave them another kid after not playing Andros and Luongo even though they were clearly good enough.

Almost half the first 11 was loanees and when he was sacked they were all accused of not having enough heart and determination for the club (I think this also happened back when Norwich went down to League 1 the year before Lambert arrived)

Now with Mick McCarthy in charge (and after saying he didn't want as many loans) 2 or 3 of those loanees have left and he has already started replacing them with new ones.

Is the loan system working? I mean surely everyone is FOR the idea of season-long loans for youngsters etc but with the Football League currently littered with 1 month loans everywhere there are some players that will play for 2 or 3 teams over the course of this season!! The whole idea of a forward scoring a few goals at one club that helps them gain points for promotion then scoring a few more for another side in the same division a month later seems bizarre.

I know the loan system has been around forever but it just feels like nowadays it's out of control..

I'm sure there are ways to improve the system.. maybe if teams were only allowed 2 loans then they would be more careful with their squads, maybe more youngsters would get games than loaning in a 33 year old over the hill ex-premier league failed striker!

Surely a club has to have an identity from season to season. The Championship is now scattered with players that have played for so many different clubs over recent years. It used to be rare to and slightly amusing to have players around like Steve Claridge that had 15 clubs in a career but it's slowly becoming the norm.

I have no idea where i'm going with this just needed to get it out becuase it's been making me sad bugging me lately!
 
I think the rules in place are there to limit what you are concerned about. A player can only be registered to 3 clubs and only play for 2 in a season. So although a striker could score for two different lower league clubs that would be the limit. We already see the same with transfers so that's not a big deal for me. If it was unlimited and a player could turn up for 4-5 clubs on loan in the same division it would be strange.

Similarly i think that the maximum number of loan players involved is a good rule. It might actually be better with slightly fewer, but it's at a decent place.

I think the real problem is with poor management and poor ownership at some of the clubs. But this isn't because of the loan system for me, they have just as many problems with poor signings as poor loans from what I know.

If you have good managers at both clubs the loan system can be a real win-win. brick managers or owners though will use the loan system poorly and it will hurt the clubs.
 
I just hate the example where you start in July with Squad A, Transfer window closes and you sign 5 or 6 loans (Squad B) then when things don't work out you let them return and can bring in 5 new loans after Christmas (Squad C) and end up using 30 plus players over a season!

Fair enough a squad should be tweaked slightly over the course of a season but I think there needs to be more of an approach where you set your squad up for the season and try and coach it to be the best that it can be over the year. Not bringing in loan players that don't even train with the squad before being thrown straight into games! That's not even coaching!!
 
I think the loan system has become a monstrouserty and is bad for the game.

It just encourages the big clubs to stockpile players. The result is that smaller clubs lose their star players before they are ready to play at the higher level. Look at Lukaku at Chelsea - or more relevantly at West Brom - an £18 million player loaned out. Chelsea wouldn't have bought him if they had to play him in the reserves because there is no room in the 25 man squad. Or look at City. They still have a small catalogue of players that they bought, gave large contracts and can't sell. The loan system allows them to bide their time rather than forcing them to cut their losses.

From our perspective, it is clearly in our interests to get young players and loan them out. If it works (e.g. Walker, Caulker) we get someone else to help develop the player, without having to pay the premium it would have cost if he had stayed at his youth club. If it doesn't work out we can still usually sell an improved player for a small gain.

Clearly it is more difficult for a young player to break through at a bigger club. The loan system seems fairer when it is a player developed at the club. Perhaps clubs should only be able to loan out players from their Academy. So we could loan out Caulker and Livermore, as a natural part of their development. However, we would not have be able to loan out Walker, Naughton or Falque. Then there would be more chance that they stay at their development club until they are ready to play at the higher level .
 
Its not going to work for every deal but the loan system can be great for all parties

Without it we wouldn't have Caulker and Walker in our first team squad right now

Can definitely work against you though. Bentley would be a good example. He's been out on loan and not performed which has no doubt made it near impossible now for us to sell him
 
I think the loan system has become a monstrouserty and is bad for the game.

It just encourages the big clubs to stockpile players. The result is that smaller clubs lose their star players before they are ready to play at the higher level. Look at Lukaku at Chelsea - or more relevantly at West Brom - an £18 million player loaned out. Chelsea wouldn't have bought him if they had to play him in the reserves because there is no room in the 25 man squad. Or look at City. They still have a small catalogue of players that they bought, gave large contracts and can't sell. The loan system allows them to bide their time rather than forcing them to cut their losses.

From our perspective, it is clearly in our interests to get young players and loan them out. If it works (e.g. Walker, Caulker) we get someone else to help develop the player, without having to pay the premium it would have cost if he had stayed at his youth club. If it doesn't work out we can still usually sell an improved player for a small gain.

Clearly it is more difficult for a young player to break through at a bigger club. The loan system seems fairer when it is a player developed at the club. Perhaps clubs should only be able to loan out players from their Academy. So we could loan out Caulker and Livermore, as a natural part of their development. However, we would not have be able to loan out Walker, Naughton or Falque. Then there would be more chance that they stay at their development club until they are ready to play at the higher level .

What about scrapping same division loans like the old days? Then you can't stockpile players like Lukakus etc.
If you knew you could only loan to the lower leagues then you would be more inclined to only bring in youngsters with potential*


*Youngsters with potential that don't cost 18m haha
 
Personally I think it's a major issue that clubs are allowed to keep an unlimited numper of players on their books, and then simply loaning out whoever cannot make it into the squad. For instance I'm sure a lot of the 23 players Chelski have out on loan would be more beneficial to the teams they play for if they were permanent signings.

The loan system IMO only benefits the larger/richer clubs (us included), in the sense that they can stockpile talented players, loan them out, and then when one of them starts to perform on a high level, the player is simply brought back with no financial compensation for the loaning club. If said player was under contract at that club, the club could (a) make the player stay another season to improve the team further, or (b) sell him, and reinvest the funds. Instead the loaning club is under the mercy of the bigger club.

Not to mention how it is impossible to for instance build a team around a good player if he's not your property - yes, chances are small clubs will lose their best players eventually anyway, but if they own them, at least there is the possibility to plan ahead.

My take: Firstly a limit to how many players a club is allowed to have on loan (2-3). Then a limit to how many players a club is allowed to have in the squad (25) and a limit to how many players a club is allowed to have out on loan (for instance 3). That's 28 players total, which should be plenty for any club for one season. This measure would contribute to a better distribution of talented players among the teams in a league as well, which IMO is good.

I also think that the transfer market could cool down from a rule like this, in the sense that clubs with the maximum allocation of players would have to sell before they buy. In combination with the utopian FFP, this would make clubs far more cautious in their approach to transfers, because they know it would be far harder to replace a player that didn't work out with another.
 
I think the loan system has become a monstrouserty and is bad for the game.

It just encourages the big clubs to stockpile players. The result is that smaller clubs lose their star players before they are ready to play at the higher level. Look at Lukaku at Chelsea - or more relevantly at West Brom - an £18 million player loaned out. Chelsea wouldn't have bought him if they had to play him in the reserves because there is no room in the 25 man squad. Or look at City. They still have a small catalogue of players that they bought, gave large contracts and can't sell. The loan system allows them to bide their time rather than forcing them to cut their losses.


From our perspective, it is clearly in our interests to get young players and loan them out. If it works (e.g. Walker, Caulker) we get someone else to help develop the player, without having to pay the premium it would have cost if he had stayed at his youth club. If it doesn't work out we can still usually sell an improved player for a small gain.

Clearly it is more difficult for a young player to break through at a bigger club. The loan system seems fairer when it is a player developed at the club. Perhaps clubs should only be able to loan out players from their Academy. So we could loan out Caulker and Livermore, as a natural part of their development. However, we would not have be able to loan out Walker, Naughton or Falque. Then there would be more chance that they stay at their development club until they are ready to play at the higher level .

Beat me to it. Agree wholeheartedly, especially with the bolded bit.
 
I think the loan system has become a monstrouserty and is bad for the game.

It just encourages the big clubs to stockpile players. The result is that smaller clubs lose their star players before they are ready to play at the higher level. Look at Lukaku at Chelsea - or more relevantly at West Brom - an £18 million player loaned out. Chelsea wouldn't have bought him if they had to play him in the reserves because there is no room in the 25 man squad. Or look at City. They still have a small catalogue of players that they bought, gave large contracts and can't sell. The loan system allows them to bide their time rather than forcing them to cut their losses.

From our perspective, it is clearly in our interests to get young players and loan them out. If it works (e.g. Walker, Caulker) we get someone else to help develop the player, without having to pay the premium it would have cost if he had stayed at his youth club. If it doesn't work out we can still usually sell an improved player for a small gain.

Clearly it is more difficult for a young player to break through at a bigger club. The loan system seems fairer when it is a player developed at the club. Perhaps clubs should only be able to loan out players from their Academy. So we could loan out Caulker and Livermore, as a natural part of their development. However, we would not have be able to loan out Walker, Naughton or Falque. Then there would be more chance that they stay at their development club until they are ready to play at the higher level .

I agree with most of that and it's the best argument against the loan system as it currently is.

I see no reason to think that the FA or the big clubs would want to change it for this reason though so I don't think it will change.
 
I don't agree with these MLS loans. If a player comes in in January they should stay until the end of the season, not go back to the MLS in March when the transfer window is supposed to be closed
 
I don't agree with these MLS loans. If a player comes in in January they should stay until the end of the season, not go back to the MLS in March when the transfer window is supposed to be closed

You realize that when they return the MLS transfer window is open?
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...y-parent-clubs-fix-messed--Martin-Samuel.html

To fix this loan system mess, Lukaku and Co must face teams that sent them out

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...-fix-messed--Martin-Samuel.html#ixzz2mQE7wzYV
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Amid the bickering, the crux of the matter got rather lost. ‘From my angle, I’m happy that he’s scoring goals against our direct rivals, and he doesn’t score against us because he can’t,’ said Jose Mourinho of Romelu Lukaku. ‘It’s phenomenal you have a player that, even when he is not playing for you, is scoring against your opponents.’

Indeed it is. Phenomenal, outrageous, diabolical, the choice is yours really.

The corrupting force of the loan system is always with us, but it takes a plain speaker like Mourinho to put it inadvertently into perspective. In essence, a club like Chelsea can stockpile talented individuals and distribute them to other clubs to act as special agents. If it wasn’t Lukaku at Everton it would have been Demba Ba somewhere else. Chelsea’s sleepers had a reasonable tilt at the title in Holland last season, too.

They are no mugs, as Lukaku has proved with eight Premier League goals already this season, a total that placed him behind only Sergio Aguero, Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez, coming out of Saturday’s 4-0 win over Stoke City. Lukaku could not play against Chelsea when they visited Goodison Park on September 14 and will not travel to Stamford Bridge for the return fixture on February 22, but he will be in action against Manchester United on Wednesday and last week scored two goals in the Merseyside derby to ensure a 3-3 draw, in a game Liverpool would probably have won otherwise.

Everton are breaking no rules, neither are Chelsea, but that is hardly the point. There should be rules, there should be limitations.

To advocate the abolition of the loan system is a losing battle these days — but there are measures that can be taken to ensure a clean fight.

The rules that prevent Lukaku turning out against Chelsea, but leave him free to damage their rivals, were introduced to prevent gentlemen’s agreements taking place on a nod and a wink basis between managers and chairmen.

Manchester United and Everton entered one over Tim Howard, the goalkeeper who moved to Goodison Park permanently in 2007 on the condition he did not turn out against his former club that season.

At the same time it was revealed that Sheffield United had a good thing going with Watford over Steve Kabba.

The match between the clubs at Bramall Lane, in which the loaned Kabba did not play for Watford, was one of only two in the final 11 that Sheffield United won.

Had the Premier League wished to conduct a proper investigation into those deals, the season might have ended in even greater chaos (it was also the year of Carlos Tevez at West Ham United), but instead they brushed the incidents under the carpet and introduced regulation that was intended to prevent this happening again.

Instead of reforming the loan system, however, all the league did was make gentlemen’s agreements official. It no longer required a cosy agreement behind closed doors; the Premier League removed the player from the fixture against his true owners, by law.

And now it is open season. A manager such as Mourinho can plant his agents at clubs across the Premier League, knowing they will be strong enough to form a vital component of that team, but missing when Chelsea come to town.

Everton will be below strength, minus Lukaku, at Stamford Bridge just as they were when Chelsea went north in September. Justice was done that day with an Everton victory, but Chelsea’s 21-goal attempts to Everton’s 10 suggest the scoreline does not tell the whole story of Lukaku’s absence. Addressing the loopholes in the loan system is not impossible. The leagues did it last summer after Watford took an unnaturally high proportion of temporary signings from Udinese. It was suggested the rule changes preventing this happening in future would make no difference and clubs would find ways around them, but Watford were close to promotion last season and are currently mid-table in the Championship. Stricter regulation did restore fairness to the system; just as it has on third-party ownership.

So what could be done here? Well, scrapping the rule that states a loaned player cannot turn out against his former club would be a start. And how to then prevent covert deals being struck?

One option would be to introduce a sanction that if a player does not turn out against his club of ownership — subject to independent medical examination, obviously — he cannot then play in the next two league matches. That should be a significant deterrent. ‘It’s good for his evolution,’ Mourinho said of Lukaku at Everton, and most definitely it is. Indeed, Mourinho is believed to have placed him there, because he knows the technical football played by Roberto Martinez has much in common with Chelsea’s way.

Lukaku is thriving at Everton — he may even want to stay. Yet the positives are undermined by the obvious way such placement skews the league.

In Mourinho’s praise for this phenomenal scheme there was latent incredulity. He can’t quite believe he’s getting away with this. And neither should we.



Thoughts?
 
I know it's an article from the Mail, but I have been thinking along the same lines since Lukaku banged in a couple against Liverpool. It is a joke of a system. Lending out good players to help teams that aren't a massive threat to your own team yet cause problems to rival teams. I don't want to insult Everton, but Liverpool have been on the up and have the history and resources to drag themselves back up into being title contenders. By the same token Chelsea can decide to never loan (or sell) to Spurs, as Mourinho and Abramovich appear to have issues with AVB.

I disagree with Samuel in his article, when he says that the Loanee should be able to play against his parent club. To me that wouldn't change a lot and is potentially open to abuse. I would advocate that Clubs cannot be allowed to lend players to a Club in the same division. So players like Lukaku would have to go abroad or to the Championship. This may also sort out the nonsense of Chelsea signing most of the decent upcoming talent around, as the players may realise that if they are not guaranteed a starting slot, then they are going to end up at Millwall, or similar!
 
I'm not sure I agree that players shouldn't be allowed to be loaned to a team in the same league. I personally think it would have been beneficial for Tom Carroll to be playing for a Premiership team every week, rather than QPR.

On a slightly different note, I read an interesting article yesterday in the i, where the writer was questioning why no young British players go on loan abroad, like Delofelou (sp) is at Everton from Barca. Taking it back to Carroll again, if I recall correctly, there was talk of him going to Ajax for a year, as part of the Eriksen deal? I think British players could learn a lot from playing different styles abroad. We have 3 players on loan at Swindon, playing turgid league 1 football. Why not use AVB or Baldini's links and get them playing in a higher division across the continent?
 
The loan system is a joke and we had this discussion on here last year I think, It has been since they introduced same-division loans like Nelto says.

I personally think loans should only be for U21s.. so they can go get games and improve in the lower leagues or abroad.
If you wanna buy a **** load of established mid-20s players and loan them out then that's abusing the system and not what the idea of registering your squad for the season is about. You should have to register your 25 man squad (or whatever the number is?) and then have to sell before you can buy anyone else.
 
I know it's an article from the Mail, but I have been thinking along the same lines since Lukaku banged in a couple against Liverpool. It is a joke of a system. Lending out good players to help teams that aren't a massive threat to your own team yet cause problems to rival teams. I don't want to insult Everton, but Liverpool have been on the up and have the history and resources to drag themselves back up into being title contenders. By the same token Chelsea can decide to never loan (or sell) to Spurs, as Mourinho and Abramovich appear to have issues with AVB.

I disagree with Samuel in his article, when he says that the Loanee should be able to play against his parent club. To me that wouldn't change a lot and is potentially open to abuse. I would advocate that Clubs cannot be allowed to lend players to a Club in the same division. So players like Lukaku would have to go abroad or to the Championship. This may also sort out the nonsense of Chelsea signing most of the decent upcoming talent around, as the players may realise that if they are not guaranteed a starting slot, then they are going to end up at Millwall, or similar!

Can you imagine the **** storm if a player plays crap against his parent and well against everyone else - how about if the player scores a couple of own goals.

There should be a a limit on the amount of loans possible to any of the main counetires top leagues and none between the same league - stop teams being able to stockpile players - if Lakaku was on the bench or not playign he would have left Chelsea as he is loaned and playing no need to. The amoutn of 5-20M players chelsea ahve loaned out for a year or too is crazy.
 
If UEFA were actually serious about financial fair play they can address this. But they're not, so they won't.

Professional football is a sport, a competition, so there is no reason why they can't put in whatever rules they want. If they really wanted to be fair about it then you put in a wage and transfer cap. Or restrict the number of registrations per season, and the squad sizes. And the number of loans.

Yes, what they are doing at Chelsea is criminal but Mr Abrahamovich has comitted far more serious crimes in his life, allegedly.
 
If that is the best solution Samuel can think of then he is more stupid than I thought. There are half a dozen better suggestions in this thread alone. All a player would have to do not to play against his parent club would be to feign an injury. One that is hard to prove, like a tight hamstring or something like that.

The loan system should solely be for the purpose of developing youth players and restrictions put in place to limit everything else. It should not be used for try-before-you-buy or as a strategic method to bolster other teams in the division. There are some good suggestion above which would stop the abuse pretty quickly. Another one could be to have the parent club to pay all or high portion of the loan players wages. That would discourage the stock piling of high earner type at least. That coupled with a few of the other suggestions above would do the trick I think.
 
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