Loan (sports)

Loan (sports)

In sports, a loan involves a particular player being allowed to temporarily play for a club other than the one he is currently contracted to. Loan deals may last from a few weeks to all season-long and can also be for a few seasons.

Players may be loaned out to other clubs for several reasons. Most commonly, young players will be loaned to a club in a lower league in order to gain valuable first team experience. In this instance, the parent club will continue to pay the player's wages in full. Some clubs put a formal arrangement in place with a feeder club for this purpose, such as Manchester United and Royal Antwerp, or Arsenal and [[K.S.K

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A club may take a player on loan if they are short on transfer funds but can still pay wages, or as temporary cover for injuries or suspensions. The parent club might demand a fee and/or that the loaning club pays some or all of the player's wages during the loan period. A club might seek to loan out a squad player to make a saving on his wages, or a first team player to regain match fitness following an injury.

A loan may be made to get around a transfer window. Such a loan might include an agreed fee for a permanent transfer when the next transfer window opens.

Some players are loaned because they are unhappy or in dispute with their current club and no other club wishes to buy them permanently. Examples of this situation include Henri Camara with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Craig Bellamy with Newcastle United.

In the Premier League, players on loan are not permitted to play against the team which holds their registration (section 7.2 of rule M.6). This means that one of the 'big' clubs can loan out a promising young player to an opposing team in the Premiership but the loanee will not be allowed to play against his 'owning' club and his parent club will not be able to observe how he plays against a 'big' club. Loanees are, however, allowed to play against their 'owning' clubs in cup competitions, unless they have played for their owning club in that cup during that season.