Limit to the cessions of soccer players

The pandemic stopped the plans planned for two years ago, but FIFA has finally presented a new regulation that guides the transfer of international soccer players and aims to put an end to a marketing that right now has its epicenter in Italy. There entities such as Atalanta have this season the rights of 88 professional footballers: 25 belong to their first team and the remaining 63 are on loan. The Bergamo club disperses soccer players in seven countries and only in Italy its mark is perceived in the squads of 36 teams. “It is an aberration. You have to set limits, ”said the president of UEFA, Alexander Ceferin. The situation brings those who do not usually understand each other into agreement. Gianni Infantino had already expressed himself in the same sense when he became president of FIFA six years ago.The objective was and is to put an end to a hustle and bustle presided over by speculation and the business of some investment funds.

The approved restrictions concern the international transfer market, but FIFA defines with its new regulations what must be applied in national federations. Thus, from next season, a limitation on the number of loans per club is established at a global level. Only eight professionals may be provided or receive the same number. The following year the figure drops to seven and from July 1, 2024 it will be limited to six footballers. Today, 50 players are on loan in the highest category of Spanish football, and among the 20 teams in the category, they have 91 professionals on loan. Atlético leads that classification with nine, including long-distance internationals such as Saúl, Morata, Vitolo and the Colombian Santiago Arias. Villarreal, for example, has seven players on loan, none of them older than 25 years.

FIFA to introduce new loan regulations

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– FIFA Media (@fifamedia) January 20, 2022

In the second step, Mirandés makes up a squad with 12 players on loan.

In the highest category, after the recent operations of Gonzalo Villa, Borja Mayoral and Óscar Rodríguez, Getafe already has eight players on loan in its squad.

Alavés has already brought together seven on loan, with the winter market still open to new arrivals.

As of July 1, a limit is established on the number of assignments per season between two clubs.

Only three footballers can be loaned and another three received throughout the campaign.

Soccer players cannot be bounced to third parties, although those under 21 years of age or those that FIFA considers as trained in a club will be outside these limitations.

A minimum duration is also defined for assignments, which will be the interval between two registration periods, and a maximum of one year.

years of stumbling

“We want to avoid that there are those who buy young people and give them right and left all over the world. It is not good for the footballers or for the clubs themselves, ”says Infantino as motivation for change. “The objective is to develop young players, promote competitive balance and avoid the hoarding or accumulation of footballers,” explains FIFA. In the memory is the case of Italian striker Samuele Longo, who signed a contract in January 2009 with Inter and during the following 11 years played for 13 teams before being transferred, already about to turn 30. This year, for the first time, he repeats the season with the same shield on his chest, that of Vicenza.

In England, only Manchester City have 34 players on loan to other teams. Chelsea, which not long ago kept an army at a distance, now retains just nine loans. "At first I thought they loved me, but after several departures and returns I realized that it was just a business," explains Lucas Piazón, a Brazilian midfielder who was compared to Kaká at the age of 20 and who went through seven destinations in five different countries before being released.

Events like this not only occur in teams with economic muscle.

Maccabi Haifa has 30 players on loan, Hajduk Split 20 and Basaksehir 17. In Spain, Real Madrid and Atlético control 21 through their subsidiaries and 12 players who are in other destinations.

Valladolid has 10 on loan, some of them to higher category teams, such as Sergi Guardiola, one of Rayo Vallecano's top scorers.

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