Emmanuel Adebayor is currently owned by Manchester City, and is on a season long loan at Spurs. Nothing wrong with that. Spurs needed a centre forward, and City wanted rid of him. He's done pretty well this season, and Tottenham were third before the game (they still are).
But because of the Premier League's restrictions, Adebayor was unable to play against his owning club. It's fine for him to play against City's rivals, but not City themselves? Are the FA that worried that he'll score an own goal or worse against his current team?
A tale of two cities
Spurs lost an excellent game 3-2, with several talking points, but as David Pleat writes in his Guardian column, they had to change their team accordingly, so it was not merely a case of putting another player in, but also altering from what had been a pretty successful system.
This blog isn't to completely criticise the loan system. It has proved the stepping stone to a great many careers, such as Beckham (played at Preston), Wilshere (Bolton) and Defoe (Bournemouth). It also seems to be the current fashion for MLS players to keep sharp in their pre-season, with this January seeing the arrivals of Thierry Henry, Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane.
Looks weird doesn't it?
The loan system these days tends to be abused - newly rich clubs can sign lots of players to stop their rivals from signing them, then end up with surplus. Some shady deals involve loans too, such as Genoa signing Kevin Prince-Boateng in 2010, only to loan him straight to AC Milan.
Perhaps FIFA/UEFA/whoever could set some rules in stone, to ensure some consistency. Financial fair play, squad sizes etc are a start. Football truly is a squad game now.
But football is what football is. It's not going to be far away before national teams start loaning players!
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