When a loan deal isn’t really a loan deal
Recently Norwich City were involved in complicated transfer negotiations with Peterborough United regarding their star striker Craig McKail-Smith. That sentence alone may lead to confusion, because the transfer window closed at the end of January. However, the loan window remained open until as recently as this Thursday. But loan deals should not be complicated and at no point should transfer fees be discussed.
A problem may present itself when the parent club doesn’t really want to loan the player out. When this happens a transfer may effectively be agreed with the player joining initially on loan. Sometimes these types of deals are called loans with a view to a permanent transfer, but more often than not the transfer has already been agreed.
The situation is understandable from the parent club, but why should the club getting the loan player in be committed to signing that player for a set fee in the summer? This appeared to be what Peterborough were attempting to engineer. The fact is they very nearly managed to do it, but they decided to up their demands at the last minute and the deal was off. That level of greed may come back at them, because the player’s contract is up in summer 2012 and they may end up selling for a small fee this summer.
I can’t help thinking that a loan deal should always be a loan deal and nothing more; if deals like this continue to be made then the name may have to be changed from emergency loan window to covert transfer window. It appears though that there can sometimes be a get out clause and an example of that would be Shola Ameobi’s proposed move to Stoke. When Stoke were still a Championship club Shola arrived on loan and the transfer was said to agreed, but in the summer the deal was called off. In many ways this is a concept behind some loan deals and it can be a try before you buy opportunity. There is really no need for commitment beyond the length of the loan.
The fact of the matter is a player should either be available for loan or not and transfers should not be arranged until the summer. There is also the argument that a player should not be allowed to join a club on loan, if they are already due to join that same club when the transfer window opens. Loan deals can be complicated enough with loan fees and portion of wages for transfer agreements to be included as well.
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I think you’ve taken a slightly one sided view of this. Agreed it would seem to undermine the point of a transfer window if parent clubs started insisting on future permanent fees, but this does not oblige any club to take up such an offer. Besides, agreements to sign players for a certain fee are made prior to the opening of the transfer window far more often than we notice because they are only announced in the summer when the window reopens. So agreements during the closed transfer period are neither uncommon nor restricting to either parent clubs or those looking to loan/purchase players. The reason I said that this is a slightly one sided view though is because such deals are often to the benefit of both clubs, not just the parent club. Agreed the wheeler-dealers at Peterborough were taking the perverbial urine in regards to Mackail-Smith, but such deals have been done at Norwich to the benefit of both clubs involved for Russell Martin, Anthony MacNamee, Aarron Wilbraham. To say that a loan should only be a loan ignores half of the utility of the process, learning whether a player is worth his price and make a decision accordingly at the end. If a price has already been agreed then so be it, noone is harmed and noone is held to ransom unless they choose to be.
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Matt,
Thanks for the comment and I can see where you are coming from and you are right that Norwich have benefited from the system in the past. I see loans as a try before you buy option, so believe teams should not be committed to signing a player after the loan.
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But the point is they don’t have to commit to buying the player unless they want to, if that means that they don’t get to sign the player on loan in the end then you just have to say that’s to the discretion of the parent club who they sell/loan the player to and how it’s arranged.
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Matt,
I totally agree with that.
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Thanks Daniel, always nice to hear positive feedback. As journalists we can always improve. Good luck with your future articles, I look forward to reading them.
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Actually you’ll find it was Norwich who tried to change the terms of the add ons, which resulted in the initial price being raised. If anyone here was trying to take thr urine it was Norwich, who with the bigger club mentality thentry to blame the smaller club. If you want him pay for him, don’t worry about the contract being up, there is a queue of clubs waiting to sign him in the summer.
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James Kent Reply:
April 12th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Be interesting to see what he goes for in the summer – but I suspect it won’t be £3million.
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Jimreaper Reply:
April 12th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
We’ll see, I bet it will be a better club than Norwich. CMS deserves much better, he is going to be a great acquisition for one team, but knowing Darragh, it will not be for peanuts.
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