Sandro Tonali‘s long-term ban at Newcastle United made the club, reportedly, try to one up the Premier League by quickly arranging a “loan” of Al-Hilal‘s Ruben Neves to fill the void in the winter. The problem is that the clubs are owned by the same Saudi consortium.
This has forced the executives of the Premier League to present a vote that according to sources will go through that will prevent the loan of players who indirectly are tied to an owner who has multiple clubs.
The ban would be temporary, and only for the January transfer window, the vote is set to take place on November 21st and clearly points to Newcastle United.
Vote on banning player loans in the Premier League
In order for the vote to go through 14 of the 20 clubs must vote to accept the ban, the ban would be for incoming loans and not outgoing.
The idea is for the league to keep the playing field level and come up with a solid solution moving forward for owners who have multiple clubs around the world.
Owners with clubs all over the world
Owners who own multiple teams have become all too common in soccer, the City Football Group is a clear example of an entity that has relations and ties all over the world. CFG has loaned players to many of their clubs to free up roster space, find temporary solutions, the best case would be Taty Castellanos who moved “on loan” to Girona as MLS and CFG found a permanent transfer solution for the Argentine.
Still conflicts of interest are beginning to arise as some of these owners have leveraged their network of clubs to be feeders directly between each other. FIFA has yet to find a proper solution or place a limit as to how many clubs one owner can have.