Chelsea will have to carefully consider who they allow to become members of the loan army in the years to come after FIFA confirmed new regulations around temporary moves.
Football's governing body are putting a cap in place from the end of the 2021/22 season.
That will see teams limited to a maximum of eight professionals loaned out and eight loaned in at any given time during a season for 2022/23.
That number will be seven for 2023/24, and finally lie at six for 2024/25. However, FIFA say 'players aged 21 and younger and club-trained players will be exempt from these limitations'.
The Blues have obviously been frequent users of the loan market, often having more than 30 players on loan.
This season, despite recalling Kenedy, Chelsea have 21 players out on loan. Of those 10 are over the age of 21 - Nathan Baxter, Jake Clarke-Salter, Emerson Palmieri. Matt Miazga, Baba Rahman, Juan Castillo, Dujon Sterling, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Michy Batshuayi. Kenedy, would still count in the season's tally as a whole however.
Of those Baxter, Clarke-Salter, Castillo and Sterling would likely be described as club-trained having been 'registered between the ages of 15 and 21 with their current club for a period of three entire seasons or 36 months'.
That would leave Chelsea using seven loan slots and consequently okay by the rules for the next two seasons.
The rules were first expected to come into play from July 2020 but were delayed as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. FIFA hope to satisfy core objects of developing young players, promoting competitive balance and preventing the hoarding of players.
The framework will also include limitations on the number of players that go on loan to a single club. See below the full framework:
The requirement of a written agreement defining the terms of the loan, in particular its duration and financial conditions
A minimum loan duration, being the interval between two registration periods, and a maximum loan duration, being one year
A prohibition on sub-loaning a professional player who is already on loan to a third club
A limitation on the number of loans per season between the same clubs: at any given time during a season, a club may only have a maximum of three professionals loaned out to a single club and a maximum of three professionals loaned in from a single club
A limitation on a club’s total number of loans per season.
FIFA also suggest that member associations have a period of three years to implement rules that will fall into line with loan rules established at the international level.
