Finance guru tips Man City to ‘reinvent’ themselves as ruling body sets July deadline
Man City will be untroubled by Fifa’s new rules surrounding the loan system – they will simply “reinvent” themselves in response.
So says finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about world football’s governing body’s imminent reforms.
Fifa announced last Thursday (20 January) that clubs will only be allowed to have six players over the age of 21 out on international loans at one time.
The new rules are set to come into place on 1 July and are aimed at preventing the richest clubs from ‘warehousing’ top talent.
City currently have 35 players out on loan, more than any other team in the Premier League.
But Plumley does not believe Fifa’s new system will present much of a threat to their recruitment and development model.
“Within this, we have to look at timescales,” the Sheffield Hallam University expert told Football Insider‘s Adam Williams.
“In the short term, City can just reinvent the model if they need to. They are one of the clubs that can do that almost at the drop of a hat.
“I don’t think this will become an issue because if they need to, they will get ahead of the curve.
“I agree with the principle of the rule because clubs stockpiling talent generally doesn’t work well for the game.
“At the moment, this is for international loans and it doesn’t cover domestic loans.
“Fifa expects that individual governing bodies will adapt their regulations to fit with this in the next few years, but that’s no given.
“It will be interesting given the big-club dominance in domestic leagues at the moment.
“If you stop them doing it internationally, they can just do it domestically. That is arguably worse for the Football League as a whole.
“The other thing we need to mention is that it has to be done as part of a wider reform of the transfer system.
“Fifa have said they are going to look at this as well, but you can’t just look at these things in isolation. You’d expect something else to give.
“There is stuff around transfer windows and maximum limits on loan contracts anyway.
“There are other things that this starts to pull at, such as sub-loans to third clubs.”
Of the 36 players City currently have out on loan, 12 are overseas.
Pep Guardiola’s first-string side meanwhile are nine points clear atop the Premier League.
In other news, ex-Fifa official suggests Man City victims of major injustice as Kevin De Bruyne controversy analysed