USMNT: New FIFA loan rules add wrinkle for players whose future is up in air

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, May 25, 2022

As the European club season ends, lots of players face uncertain futures due to new FIFA regulations intended to clamp down on excessive loan moves.

They include 11 players who spent the 2021-22 season on loan and have been capped by the USA or called into national team camps in the last three years.

Cameron Carter-Vickers and Haji Wright earned call-ups for the June set of friendlies based on their play while on loan during the 2021-22 season. Carter-Vickers helped Celtic win the Scottish Premiership title after spending the previous four years on loan from Tottenham to six different English Championship League clubs.

Scottish media have reported that Celtic has reached an agreement on personal terms with CCV, but they are contingent on Celtic and Spurs coming to terms on a transfer. The 24-year-old center back is in the last year of his contract with Tottenham, which will need to find a buyer soon. According to the same reports, Spurs has given Celtic a June 15 deadline to reach an agreement on a transfer fee or else it will look elsewhere.

What happens to Wright remains to be seen. He enjoyed a breakout season at Antalyaspor, finishing with 14 goals in 31 games after his controversial loan from Danish club SønderjyskE. According to Danish media reports, he was training last summer with
Antalyaspor without permission from SønderjyskE, which finally consented to a loan move only after its contract with Wright was extended.

In the meantime, SønderjyskE has been relegated from the top-tier Superliga but still owns Wright's contract. Will it sell its rising star to Antalyaspor? Or will it find another buyer for Wright, who has scored 25 goals in the last two seasons.

The hoarding of players has been an issue for years, but FIFA has finally stepped in and adopted new regulations, which apply to moves between teams of two different federations. (Federations have three years to adopt domestic rules in line with FIFA's rules.)

FIFA: Loan regulations

They include regulations about the minimum and maximum length of loan deals, limitations on the number of deals two clubs can make in a season and a prohibition on sub-loaning players. The regulations, which take effect on July 1, limit the number of pro players a team can loan in or loan out during a season:

• From July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, eight players;
• From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, seven players;
• From July 1, 2024, six players;

Players aged 21 and younger and Homegrown players are exempt from these limitations.

For players who move from team to team, the example that there is light at the end of the tunnel is Erik Palmer-Brown. The 25-year-old defender moved from Sporting Kansas City to Manchester City in 2018 and spent the next three years at mid-level teams in Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria before landing at French club Troyes on loan for the 2021-22 season. By January, Manchester City agreed to transfer EPB to Troyes -- another club in the City Football Group orbit -- he became a regular on its backline and earned a call-up for the March World Cup qualifiers and will be in Cincinnati for the start of training camp ahead of the June window.

No American has been wandering around Europe on loan longer than Matt Miazga. He signed with Chelsea in January 2016, finished out the 2015-16 season at Stamford Bridge, getting into two Premier League games, but has spent the next six years at five different clubs in five different countries, including Spain's Alaves in 2021-22. He has one year left on his contract with Chelsea, which had 22 players out on loan.

The other European-based players on loan include Chris Richards, who parlayed two successful seasons on loan from Bayern Munich to Hoffenheim to regular call-ups to the national team, for which he might start in place of injured Miles Robinson at center back. Problem is, he is again headed back to Bayern Munich, who has shown no inclination in giving him a starting job.

Another German-based American is Uly Llanez, who signed with Wolfsburg in 2019 but whose stock fell after an unhappy loan spell at Dutch club Heerenveen. He ended up this season at St. Poelten in the Austrian second division as part of an agreement with Wolfsburg for a home for players the Bundesliga club has no room for on its first team.

Like Llanez, Sebastian Soto impressed for the USA at the 2019 Under-20 World Cup and scored in his senior national team debut -- two goals, in fact, in a 6-2 win over Panama -- but has spent the last two seasons on loan. He signed with Norwich City after playing out his contract at Norwich City but has bounced around, from clubs in the Dutch and Portuguese second divisions to tiny Livingston in Scotland this winter.

In short spells, Nicholas Gioacchini showed promise with the national team at the 2021 Gold Cup. His loan move from Caen in the French Ligue 2 to Ligue 1 Montpellier was his chance further improve his stock. But he played only 497 minutes and is headed back to Caen after Montpellier didn't exercise its option to purchase him.

Many Europe clubs, reeling from financial losses triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, have hedged their bets, preferring to sign players on loan with purchase options, some with triggers in performance clauses, rather than complete outright transfer deals.

Three Americans moved to Europe from MLS in January on 18-month loans:

-- 20-year-old Cole Bassett, Colorado Rapids to Feyenoord, for which he made seven appearances as a sub;
-- 18-year-old Justin Che, FC Dallas to Hoffenheim, for which he made two brief appearance; and
-- 21-year-old James Sands, NYCFC to Rangers, for which he appeared as a sub in last week's Europa League final.