Are we getting slippery under the sheets with Swindon?

[TheAmerican]

From a post on reddit.com/r/coys, by Jayesar (http://www.reddit.com/r/coys/commen...than_byrne_is_joining_swindon_town_on/caz17ao)

So Kevin MacDonald is the manager of Swindon, someone who was rumoured to be a target for Spurs youth manager when Liverpool poached ours. He opted to move to Swindon, but it shows that THFC clearly rate him as a developer of youth.
So, it seems that spurs would try very hard to loan to Swindon as they rate the manager. Also, to help the players fit in (and to simplify monitoring) it would also be nice to loan them as many players as possible. Of course, that is our perfect world, they probably won't want to develop all our youth players only to send them back, what is in it for them?
Well, WindyCOYS (http://windycoys.com/2013/07/spursswindon-loan-links/) postulated this some time ago:

[Players] being tied down to a season-long loan means that he can’t be recalled and sent to a Championship club in January should he naturally progress, due to FA rules. This has lead to talk of a sneaky work-around. Could Spurs have actually sold the players – i.e. transferred their registration – with a buy-back clause of £1? I guess we will find out in [last] January.
​

So, rumour was that Spurs and Swindon set up an unofficial partnership. We loan them (and sell them with £1 buyback clauses) a large number of players - getting around the 4 player max rules. We are even nice enough to loan them players who could be playing at a much higher level to help them get promoted and in return they develop our youth. Essentially Swindon becomes "Spurs B in the Championship". They get promoted, we get developed youth.
Now, someone like Luongo or Pritchard could EASILY land a championship (or higher) loan, and now we see them off to Swindon. Sounds like we are scratching their back here. If they get promoted, could they return the favour?
In the last 6 months we have seen Parrett and Byrne join full time as well as Hall on loan. Now Pritchard/Luongo (well above 3rd div level) are on the way too and the original rumours say that Mason (who was loaned to Ligue 1 in France last season!) is on the way too, oh, and Swindon have officially targetted Ceballos.
By my count that is 5 players confirmed moved to Swindon, 2 of those could be punching far higher. Conspiracy predicts that in a shock move someone like Mason or Ceballos will also end up at Swindon, which will give them a serious side to go for a promotion tilt.

So basically, are we possibly using Swindon as a development club, where we can send more players than we should be able to?

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

Sounds good, no qualm with that albeit slightly wrong...

 

[mil1lion]

Swindon feeder club

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

Is Kevin McDonald the former Villa youth coach? If it is, Swindon would be a great place to send our youth players.

 

[TheAmerican]

Is Kevin McDonald the former Villa youth coach? If it is, Swindon would be a great place to send our youth players.

Yeah, I remember he was getting tapped up by Blackburn then went to Swindon Town out of no-where.

 

[jonola]

Is Kevin McDonald the former Villa youth coach? If it is, Swindon would be a great place to send our youth players.

He was certainly assistant manager at villa, not sure about the youth coach

This sounds all very interesting to me, I like the way the club is setting itself up, would be great to actually have some youngsters come through the ranks (the king aside of course)

 

[mark87]

Well how many Chelsea players were on loan at Watford last season? If they can do it then so can we.

 

[RichieS]

Well how many Chelsea players were on loan at Watford last season? If they can do it then so can we.

Err, Watford had loads of Udinese players last season as the 2 clubs are owned by the same family.

 

[dontcallme]

As far as I know Watford loaned only Nathaniel Chalobah from Chelsea last season.

I think they had around 9 players from Udinese.

 

[moomin]

it's a very good idea. dodgy, but smart. loaning our youth to a team where we know they will get playing time under a coach we rate sounds very good for us. and swindon get a very cheap path to promotion. good for all parties. hopefully we don't get in trouble for it.

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

He was certainly assistant manager at villa, not sure about the youth coach

This sounds all very interesting to me, I like the way the club is setting itself up, would be great to actually have some youngsters come through the ranks (the king aside of course)

Yeah I thought it was him, he was deffo their youth coach for along time, but yeah, he did get promoted to assistant.

 

[jonola]

Yeah I thought it was him, he was deffo their youth coach for along time, but yeah, he did get promoted to assistant.

Either way a quality coach IMHO

 

[Llord Flashheart]

it's a very good idea. dodgy, but smart. loaning our youth to a team where we know they will get playing time under a coach we rate sounds very good for us. and swindon get a very cheap path to promotion. good for all parties. hopefully we don't get in trouble for it.

Totally agree with you on all counts but if we're not breaking any rules then how can we get in trouble. I'd say Levy and co. are simply using the set rules to our advantage, we can't loan more than 'x' players but we can sell them as many as we want and we insert a buyback clause in their contracts.
The FA may (try to) change the rules in time to avoid this type of situation.

I can already see Fergie saying this has Levy's fingerprints all over it!

 

[robin09]

I hope the "£1 buy back clause" isn't true.

While technically legal, it is certainly not within the spirit of the game.

Would we be happy if one of our rivals all of a sudden started getting Real Madrid or Barca's promising youth players?

 

[moomin]

Totally agree with you on all counts but if we're not breaking any rules then how can we get in trouble. I'd say Levy and co. are simply using the set rules to our advantage, we can't loan more than 'x' players but we can sell them as many as we want and we insert a buyback clause in their contracts.
The FA may (try to) change the rules in time to avoid this type of situation.

I can already see Fergie saying this has Levy's fingerprints all over it!

Technically it's legal, but it's obvious we're doing dodgy stuff to get around the loan limit rules. I wouldn't be surprised if some other clubs raised a stink about it..... or tried to do the same thing

 

[SlickMongoose]

I'm sure this won't be a long term thing, because when Swindon get their finances sorted out and some high earners off the payroll they'll be building their own squad. But at the moment they're desperate for players.

 

[ravo]

I think it's a good idea. The first year is in League 1, so maybe not ideal, but I would have thought that the idea would be to send our best and brightest youth there (as we have done), get them promoted - then we have a champ club to send players for future seasons = better proving ground for our youth players, who would then hopefully get PL loans, before getting a first team shot.

 

[UncleBuck]

Well how many Chelsea players were on loan at Watford last season? If they can do it then so can we.

yup just the one, bit of research required before posting possibly...
The lad done well though!

 

[Misfit]

Tim Sherwood and the geezer at Swindon are BFFs apparently. One or the other was the best man at their wedding etc.

As long as it's within regulation, for now at least, no fuss.

 

[Syn_13]

I hope the "£1 buy back clause" isn't true.

While technically legal, it is certainly not within the spirit of the game.

Would we be happy if one of our rivals all of a sudden started getting Real Madrid or Barca's promising youth players?

Surely if we did set something up like this then the FA would do something about it. I mean, if we were Utd it'd be ok, but we're surely not popular enough to get away with anything like that?

I do agree that it's not within the spirit of the game. Didn't like the way Monaco and Porto fucked Lisbon over recently.