Huddersfield boss Danny Cowley slams the EFL over loan rules which have seen struggling Terriers denied registration for returning players but other rivals given permission
- Huddersfield Town have been told they cannot register three young players
- Ryan Schofield, Rarmani Edmonds-Green and Josh Koroma had been on loan
- However Birmingham City have been allowed to register returning stars
- The two sides meet at St Andrew’s on Wednesday in the Championship
Huddersfield boss Danny Cowley has criticised the EFL for allowing some Championship clubs to register players returning from loan for the post-lockdown season but not others.
Cowley, locked in a relegation fight, has been told he cannot register three young players – Ryan Schofield, 20, who was on loan at Livingston, Rarmani Edmonds-Green, 21, who was at Swindon, and Josh Koroma, who was at Rotherham.
Birmingham, however, who host Huddersfield at St Andrew’s on Wednesday have been cleared to play Odin Bailey, 20, who was at Forest Green, Charlie Larkin, 21, who was at Stevenage, and Josh Dacres-Cogley, who was at Crawley.
Huddersfield Town boss Danny Cowley believes his side are being unfairly punished by the Football League over inconsistent rules surrounding players returning on loan
‘How the EFL think that’s fair or how they come to make their decisions I’m not quite sure,’ said Cowley.
‘If you’re going to open it up it should be opened up to everybody. Birmingham will have three players available to them on Wednesday and we’ve had our rejected.
‘What was disappointing is that [operations director] Ann Hough spent all week sending email after email with absolute radio silence from the league. We’re the second biggest league in this country and maybe the fifth biggest in the whole of Europe. It is really poor.’
Championship clubs voted through the new rules which were designed to help them cope with the strain of the restart, where there was potential for more injuries and players to be isolated if they were to test positive for Covid-19 or in contact with those who did.
The Terriers are in danger of back-to-back relegations as they sit inside the Championship’s bottom three with just seven games to play
Some clubs have resources stretched because they have lost players at the end of their contracts in June.
The EFL claim they have tried to strike a balance, they did not want clubs to be short of players but did not want those clubs recently relegated from the Premier League, such as Huddersfield, and thus receiving parachute payments and carrying larger squads, with more players out on loan, to have an unfair advantage.
A range of criteria were agreed through which to consider each application.
Players returning must be coming from a competition which had been curtailed and a club not involved in play-offs – and must not have been on loan at more than one club this season.
The club to which they were returning must show it would be difficult to fill the match-day squad without them.
