Play now, pay later.....

By lunchtime on transfer deadline day, Alvaro Negredo was bound for Valencia. A conference call between executives at Manchester City had confirmed the move, with manager Manuel Pellegrini having the final say.
Negredo had made an outstanding start to his career in the Premier League, but then his stay turned sour. It was a personal financial matter and nothing to do with football, but it meant Negredo and his wife, Clara, were no longer happy in their new country. It is even possible to spot the moment when Negredo’s dissatisfaction begins and his form falls off a cliff. He scores 26 goals up to January 21, and none after.
Pellegrini’s view was a compassionate one. He knew Negredo’s departure would leave City short up front, but felt the player was as good as lost to the club, even if he stayed. It would be kinder to let him go home. If required, Yaya Toure or David Silva could be pushed into a more forward role. Anyway, the offer from Valencia was a good one: £25million, plus add-ons. With an eye on the demands of financial fair play, this was sensible business for City.

Negredo left for Valencia and, much later that day, the deal was confirmed — but as a loan. There is an obligatory purchase clause, activated 12 months from now and for the price discussed — but this season at least Negredo remains, technically, a Manchester City player parked in Spain. How did this happen? Financial expedience. Valencia, stricken by debt, have recently been the subject of a takeover by Peter Lim, a businessman from Singapore, once interested in buying Liverpool.
The suggestion is that while Lim’s rescue is progressing, the club are still financially troubled. They haven’t got the £25m now, but they will have in a year and City will get their money then. This is the way modern football works. A loan again? Naturally.
Last week, at the draw for the Champions League in Monte Carlo, Gianni Infantino, UEFA’s general secretary, was singing the praises of financial fair play. Growth had outstripped wages for the first time in five seasons, he said. The cumulative losses of European clubs went from £1.35billion in 2011 to £635m in 2013.

In the background, various club accountants were being chaired shoulder-high from the room by laughing owners. You fooled ’em, chief.
Somehow, in this new era of frugality, Premier League clubs spent £835m gross this summer. La Liga spent £425m, Serie A £260m, the Bundesliga £250m. But that’s not all of it. Nowhere near.
Not included in the Premier League’s record spend — over £200m up on last summer — is Radamel Falcao’s £50m deal to Manchester United.
His advisers have been openly briefing that he is a United player for four years, yet right now he is merely at Old Trafford on loan. Equally, Negredo’s guaranteed £25m does not appear in La Liga’s £425m gross spend, because it has been deferred for a year. Nor is there any mention of Fernando Torres in Serie A’s calculations. He has joined AC Milan on a two-year loan, at the end of which his contract with Chelsea expires anyway.

There is more chance of Ken Bates returning to Stamford Bridge than Torres, yet, according to the paper-work, he remains a Chelsea player — one of the 26 the club currently have out on loan.
There should be a new word for these charades, these tricks of the balance sheet. They are not loans as we know them, in the true spirit of the word.
Loan a friend a tenner and you get it back, but many of football’s loans are never intended for return. There is little that is temporary in the structure of these moves, and the players involved are not seeking experience, in the hope of reverting, improved, to their parent club. These players pose with shirts and scarves outside their new homes like permanent fixtures. Where does the loyalty lie?

Sebastian Coates whipped on his Sunderland shirt and held up a ball with the club crest prominently displayed to camera. He is still a Liverpool player, yet there is no hint of disloyalty in his action, and no offence taken. Nobody expects to see Coates back at Anfield again.
He is 23 and when this loan expires will have one year remaining on his contract. If he does well, the feeling is he will remain at Sunderland with fellow Uruguayan national, Gus Poyet.
If he does not, then Liverpool will hardly be rushing to take him back anyway. The loan merely keeps Coates off Sunderland’s books for a year, until Poyet makes his mind up. Yet the player smiles for the camera as proudly as if a true commitment has been made.

Nothing in United’s handling of the Falcao transfer suggests this is a player passing through for 12 months. The carefully staged images, the fanfare, the astronomical wages, all were evidence of a long-term commitment; yet the fine details were confused. Why the initial, 12-month loan?
If the football was as inventive as the accountancy, United might have been considerably more competitive since Sir Alex Ferguson left.
As the only change in the structure of European football is financial fair play, that has to be the inspiration for this rash of loan transfers.

There have always been temporary deals, but they largely took place between the elite and smaller clubs. The richest would stockpile young talent, their inferiors would scramble for the crumbs.
It is not a good system, but it has its benefits. Undoubtedly, Chelsea owe the development of goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois to an astute manipulation of the loan system.
What has changed is the growth of loans between elite clubs: Real Madrid borrowing off Manchester United, Manchester United off Monaco, AC Milan off Chelsea.
Yes it happened occasionally —Hernan Crespo was a Chelsea player between August 26, 2003 and July 3, 2008, and in that time played more games for Inter and AC Milan than he did for Chelsea — but not with the prevalence witnessed this summer.

A permanent transfer on Monday should have been announced with its own little jingle. It felt special.
So football hasn’t been saved from the precipice by financial fair play, but has merely deferred the plunge with the hope of better times ahead.
This was the agents window, the accountants window, the window of avoidance, of evasion and HP. Play now, pay later. Get your kicks on the tick. And nothing to worry about from here, of course.
As ever in the modern game, what could possibly go wrong?