Steve Bruce has been backed to bring high-quality loans to Sheffield Wednesday in the summer transfer window.
The market for temporary deals is one in which, historically, the Owls boss has always excelled – whether it’s getting Nicklas Bendtner to Birmingham or Tammy Abraham to Aston Villa.
But Wednesday’s rumoured soft embargo, which according to the football finance expert, Kieran Maguire, still allows for players to be signed with approval from the English Football League, could make such moves difficult.
Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield at the weekend, Maguire, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, explained: “The EFL will monitor them (any incoming deals) to see whether or not it’s going to increase Sheffield Wednesday’s losses to a level which could be unacceptable, or they could be concerned that they’d exceed FFP (financial fair play) limits.
“And I think the downside of that from the club’s point of view, especially if you were trying to compete in the loan market, is that if a player or a selling club has a choice of two or three clubs to put a deal towards, they’re going to be less likely to choose a club which is under a soft embargo if they know they’ve got to go through more hoops and more legal issues in terms of satisfying the EFL, as opposed to just placing a phone call: Do you want Player X? Yes. OK, he’s on the way. This is the loan fee, these are the wages, and a deal gets sorted immediately.”
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Asked when Sheffield Wednesday are likely to emerge from their ’embargo’, Maguire replied that the situation remains unclear until either the Owls or the EFL choose to comment.
He added that the ‘simple course of action’ would be for Wednesday to submit their 2018 accounts – with the club’s failure to do perceived to be the cause of their ongoing constraints.
But Maguire warned that even then, Wednesday could yet face further sanctions if EFL, whose leadership problems he suggests could be delaying matters, doesn’t like what it sees.