Pressure to get results in the EFL means clubs are thinking outside the box. By exploiting a loophole in the emergency goalkeeper loan rule, they've found a clever but controversial way to save them money.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00The role of the number two goalkeeper changes depending on the size of the club. For the very
00:07biggest teams, such as the money and data poured into choosing a number one, anyone brought in
00:11below is expected to sit tight, stay fit and enjoy their annual run-out in the early rounds of the
00:16Carabao Cup. Further down the Premier League, there's also often the chance to displace the
00:20regular custodian, be the form or fitness, eventually work in your favour. The unfancied
00:24Jason Steele unseated Robert Sanchez at Brighton last season, largely because of his better work
00:28with the ball at his feet. But scale down the footballing pyramid to where every single
00:32penny counts, and the number two goalkeeper is slowly, quietly, becoming a controversial
00:37topic in football. Men sign not to play second fiddle, but specifically to exploit a loophole
00:42in the rules by not playing at all. This is the rise of the fake number two goalkeeper.
00:49Daniel Gili is a former Hungarian under-21 goalkeeper. Now 26, he's just been released by National
00:54League side Maidenhead United. Ten years ago, a promising career lay in front of him.
00:58He moved to England from Hungary and signed for then Premier League club Stoke City. He
01:02began playing for their under-21 and under-18 sides, all the while earning caps for Hungary's
01:07international youth teams up to under-21 level. In 2016 and 2017, he was loaned to local non-league
01:12side Nantwich Town and played a total of eight games there. In 2018, Stoke were relegated to
01:17the championship. At this stage, Daniel is 21 and hasn't played a minute of senior football
01:21in the English Football League. And that's just two EFL trophy games on his CV. At the end of Stoke's
01:26first season in the championship, they finished 16th, Daniel was released. Wigan signed him.
01:30He was named on the bench by the Ladex four times in the 2019-20 season, but didn't play
01:34a single minute of football. Wigan released him when he signed for Peterborough in League
01:381 and was named their number two goalkeeper for the 2020-21 season. After 39 appearances
01:43on the bench for Posh, their number one goalkeeper, Christy Pym, picked up an injury.
01:47Finally, Daniel's big chance? No. Why? Because he is a fake number two goalkeeper.
01:52Instead of handing their young Hungarian number two his first ever minutes of senior football,
01:56Peterborough chose to activate the EFL's emergency goalkeeper loan clause. This allows them to bring
02:01in a replacement goalkeeper with more experience on loan for seven days because they had no
02:05professional goalkeepers available in the eyes of the EFL. Crucially, the EFL's definition of a
02:10professional goalkeeper is a goalkeeper, excluding any goalkeeper registered as a non-contract player,
02:15who has been named in the starting XI on five or more occasions by any club or a Premier League
02:20club in any matches in the relevant league or first-team cup competitions other than the EFL
02:25trophy. Emergency goalkeeper loans last a week, but can be extended in weekly increments.
02:30At this stage, Daniel is 24 and has made zero appearances in a professional league or cup game.
02:35The loophole meant he remained on Peterborough's bench, with Joe Bursic joining on emergency loan
02:39from, oh cruel irony, Stoke City. To make matters worse, Bursic is three years younger than Daniel
02:46and had played 15 games in League One via a loan to Doncaster that season. Bursic was actually
02:51recalled by Stoke that season during a goalkeeping crisis and played 10 further championship games
02:55for them, a dizzying 25 senior games to his name, comfortably qualifying him as a professional
03:00goalkeeper in the eyes of the EFL. Football is cruel, and it got crueler for Daniel. That summer,
03:06he was put on the transfer list by Peterborough and frozen out of the team, not even appearing on the
03:10bench. Then, just after Christmas, he was loaned to Maidenhead United in the National League.
03:14After two games, he signed permanently. At last, regular football, albeit in non-league.
03:20Things were going well until disaster struck in April this year when he sustained an ACL injury.
03:24It means he's unlikely to play football again until 2024. What's worse is the fact he will
03:29have to start without a club, as Maidenhead released him at the beginning of June.
03:32After all, what non-league club can afford to pay an injured player for six months?
03:37There are other examples of fake number twos if you look closely. In 2021-22, Connor Ripley
03:41was signed for Salford from Preston on an emergency loan that was extended four times.
03:46He played seven games for Salford and once in the FA Cup.
03:49Zach G. Cock was the fake number two in this instance, and even more intriguing is that he
03:53was a loaned-in fake number two, having been signed on loan by Salford for the season from
03:58Birmingham. G. Cock returned to Birmingham towards the end of the 2021-22 season and played
04:03two first-team games, conceding 10 goals. Now 22, he has just 24 games on his CV, but only
04:09a handful of these are in the AFL. The rest are non-league appearances. You could argue
04:13he's miles off first-team football at any professional level and way behind where a 22-year-old keeper
04:18with his talent could be.
04:20Goalkeeping structure has changed. Fake number twos are likely to become more common, while
04:24the emergency loan option exists. The clause is actually designed in theory to protect
04:29inexperienced young goalkeepers from being thrown in the deep end in the AFL, but it's
04:33also potentially taking crucial senior minutes away from slightly older goalkeepers like Daniel
04:37Goli and Zach G. Cock. Host of the GK Union podcast, Matt Beedle points out that incredibly,
04:43Grimsby didn't have a number two goalkeeper in their matchday squad for most of their games
04:47last season. Beedle also predicts that soon most League One and League Two number one goalkeepers
04:51will be loaned in from the Premier League and Championship. In the Premier League, clubs
04:55will have a strong number one, a strong number two, and more recently a semi-strong and ultimately
04:59reliable number three, he explains. High-profile examples of reliable number threes this season
05:04include Manchester City's Scott Carson and Marcus Bettinelli at Chelsea. However, with less money
05:10naturally available in the third and fourth tiers, less resources are forthcoming. As a result,
05:14the depth of a goalkeeping department is naturally compromised. Imagine the goalkeeping budget for
05:19a League Two club is £2,500 a week. That club could sign two decent goalkeepers, one on £1,500 a week
05:26and the other on £1,000 a week, granting a certain level of assurance. Or they could exploit the
05:31emergency loan system, utilise a large share of the budget on a very strong number one and stick a
05:35fake number two on the bench. Lower budgets plus pressure for results make this an increasing trend.
05:42Harry Eistedd is a goalkeeper who you could argue has finally escaped the limbo of the fake number
05:46two role. He was loaned to Barnsley from Luton this January, having played less than five EFL games
05:50in a very malnourished career. He turned 26 in March. Eistedd performed well at Barnsley,
05:55almost helping them seal promotion to the Championship via the playoffs and was unofficial
05:58man of the match in the final versus Sheffield Wednesday, making an incredible save in extra
06:02time. But the Daniel GLIs and Zach G. Cox remain victims of the EFL's emergency loan rule. It's tough
06:09for goalkeepers like them to leave a club and gain valuable experience elsewhere because the reality is
06:14their lack of experience can be an advantage to a club. It provides a certain veil of protection should
06:19the number one getting injured during a game. But you can bet the next day the club will be calling
06:23the EFL to activate the emergency loan clause to protect their fake number two if their number one
06:28is going to be out for a number of games. Young goalkeepers are seeing out stopgap contracts and
06:33then being released for copycat successors. Sure, they've had involvement in a professional
06:37environment, but their CV boasts a big fat zero next to professional appearances. What follows is an
06:42inevitable drop into non-league in a bid to start the journey again. But fail to perform at that level,
06:47or even worse get injured, and the dream of professional football can quickly slip through
06:52the court keepers' hands.