Stuart McCall has spoke of his frustration at an unknown loophole that has hampered attempts to get players out on loan.
It has came to light in recent days that a new rule, put in place at the establishment of the SPFL, forbids clubs from loaning more than one player to a specific club.
Prior to this summer, top league clubs could only loan one player to a club within the same division, but could send multiple to clubs in any of the lower divisions.
However, when the league bodies were amalgamated in the summer and the new rules drawn up, the change was added and not made clear to clubs until now.
Anomalies exist; Dunfermline have three players borrowed from Dundee United (completed whilst still under the auspices of the Scottish Football League) and St Mirren have two players on loan from Newcastle Utd, due to the cross border nature of the deal, where the same rules do not apply.
Adam Cummins joined Dundee on loan yesterday and it looked likely a second player would join him today.
However, that has been scuppered, forcing a re-think, which prompted an angry and frustrated response from the Motherwell boss.
[pullquote]We can only send one player to the same club in a different division. In England the rule is two. Cross-border FIFA rules say it can be more than one but here in Scotland, you can’t. It is crazy![/pullquote]
“There was an opportunity for one of our players to join Adam Cummins on loan at Dundee, then we read this morning that can’t happen due to a new rule,” he told the broadcast press at Motherwell’s weekly news conference.
“We didn’t know, Dundee certainly didn’t know and I am pretty sure not many clubs were aware.
“It’s absolutely nonsensical. If we wanted to send two youngsters together to say someone like Brechin, where they can learn their trade and get good coaching and potentially competitive football; we now can’t.
“We can only send one player to the same club in a different division. In England the rule is two. Cross-border FIFA rules say it can be more than one but here in Scotland, you can’t. It is crazy!
“According to what I read, this had been flagged up to the league earlier, so my question would be, why wasn’t some sort of circular sent around clubs instead of us and everyone being in the dark?
“I spoke to (SPFL Chief Executive) Neil Doncaster at length this morning and he is in total agreement. I think they have a meeting on Monday and I understand it is getting looked at. It just makes things much more difficult for us.”
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