Chelsea have a comfortable head start on complying with new FIFA loan rules

FIFA are about to impose new restrictions on how many players a club can have on foreign loans. The new policy will be a non-factor for Chelsea after the last year.

When rumours of FIFA sticking their corrupt snout in clubs’ loan business first arose a few years ago, everyone cast a concerned or mocking eye towards Chelsea. The Blues were at or near their peak-Michael Emenalo era with over three dozen players on loan, including loan luminaries like Matej Delac. The last 13 months, though, have seen Chelsea get ahead of the governing bodies’ rulings. The loan-to-own and buy-then-loan-back deals for Mateo Kovacic and Christian Pulisic anticipated last summer’s transfer ban, and the paring of the loan army gave the club a head start on complying with the impending new rules.

Last summer, Chelsea sold nearly 1,000 loan games worth of loanees. They sold the two longest-serving loanees, Tomas Kalas and Kenneth Omeruo, along with Cobham academy graduates like Kasey Palmer and Jay Dasilva. The Blues also sold players who they might otherwise loan, such as Jeremie Boga, while including buy-clauses for players like Ola Aina, whom Torino bought.

The new FIFA rules will only apply to players over 22 years old, and only to players on international loans.

So while Sky Sports lazily falls back on old habits by citing Chelsea alone for their 28 players on loan, fewer than half of those will be subject to the new regulations. And neither of the players Sky mentions by name would be affected by the new rules: Ethan Ampadu is only 19, and Danny Drinkwater is playing in Aston Villa. In case Sky forgot, that club is in Birmingham. In England. Same as Chelsea.

The Blues currently have nine players over age 22 on international loans. One is almost certain to be sold this summer and, if he isn’t, could have earned a shot at the first team if not for the backlog at his position: Mario Pasalic, currently at Atalanta.

Victor Moses is among the other eight, and Antonio Conte will surely push Inter Milan to buy him. As long as the offer is reasonable, the Blues have no reason not to sell, especially if they are doing other business with Inter this summer involving Marcos Alonso, Olivier Giroud, Matias Vecino (unlikely) or Lautaro Martinez (very long shot).

Of the remaining seven, none of any real chance of playing at Stamford Bridge. Well, at least not in Blue. If Chelsea need to clear a few slots in the loan army to meet the new rules, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Davide Zappacosta, Lucas Piazon, Abdul Baba Rahman will all be in line for their ticket out.

The trend towards planning for the future is still a new one at Chelsea, and so far it seems to have a time horizon of about a year. They can plan for transfer bans and loan restrictions.

We still have to see if they can work over the long-term on the little matter of the first team itself.