How Football Teams Use A Secret Loophole To Get A “Fake Goalkeeper”

FourFourTwo

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.

Transcript

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

00:53by National League side Maidenhead United. Ten years ago, a promising career lay in front

00:58of him. He moved to England from Hungary and signed for then Premier League club Stoke City.

01:02He began 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 the

01:17championship. At this stage, Daniel is 21 and hasn't played a minute of senior football in the

01:21English Football League. And that's just two EFL trophy games on his CV. At the end of Stoke's first season

01:26in the championship, they finished 16th. Daniel was released. Wigan signed him. He was named on

01:31the bench by the Laddicks four times in the 2019-20 season, but didn't play a single minute of

01:35football. Wigan released him when he signed for Peterborough in League One and was named their

01:39number two goalkeeper for the 2020-21 season. After 39 appearances on the bench for Posh,

01:44their number one goalkeeper, Christy Pym, picked up an injury. Finally, Daniel's big chance? No. Why?

01:50Because he is a fake number two goalkeeper. Instead of handing their young Hungarian number two his first

01:55ever minutes of senior football, Peterborough chose to activate the EFL's emergency goalkeeper loan

01:59clause. This allows them to bring in a replacement goalkeeper with more experience on loan for seven

02:03days because they had no professional goalkeepers available in the eyes of the EFL. Crucially, the EFL's

02:09definition of a professional goalkeeper is a goalkeeper, excluding any goalkeeper registered as a

02:14non-contract player, who has been named in the starting XI on five or more occasions by any club or a

02:19Premier League club in any matches in the relevant league or first-team cup competitions other than

02:24the EFL trophy. 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 Bursick joining on emergency loan

02:39from, oh cruel irony, Stoke City. To make matters worse, Bursick is three years younger than Daniel and

02:46have played 15 games in League One via a loan to Doncaster that season. Bursick 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. He played

03:46seven games for Salford and once in the FA Cup. Zach G-Cock was the fake number two in

03:51this instance, and even more intriguing is that he was a loaned-in fake number two, having

03:55been signed on loan by Salford for the season from Birmingham. G-Cock returned to Birmingham

04:00towards the end of the 2021-22 season and played two first-team games, conceding 10 goals.

04:05Now 22, he has just 24 games on his CV, but only a handful of these are in the AFL. The

04:11rest are non-league appearances. You could argue he's miles off first-team football at

04:15any professional level and way behind where a 22-year-old keeper with 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 also

04:33potentially taking crucial senior minutes away from slightly older goalkeepers like Daniel

04:37G-Li 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 will

04:56have 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

05:09money naturally available in the third and fourth tiers, less resources are forthcoming. As

05:13a result, the depth of a goalkeeping department is naturally compromised. Imagine the goalkeeping

05:18budget for a League Two club is £2,500 a week. That club could sign two decent goalkeepers,

05:24one on £1,500 a week and the other on £1,000 a week, granting a certain level of assurance.

05:30Or they could exploit the emergency loan system, utilise a large share of the budget on a very

05:34strong number one and stick a fake number two on the bench. Low budgets plus pressure

05:39for results make this an increasing trend. Harry Eystead is a goalkeeper who you could argue

05:43has finally escaped the limbo of the fake number two role. He was loaned to Barnsley from Luton

05:48this January, having played less than five EFL games in a very malnourished career. He turned

05:5226 in March. Eystead performed well at Barnsley, almost helping them seal promotion of the

05:56Championship via the playoffs and was unofficial man of the match in the final versus Sheffield

06:00Wednesday, making an incredible save in extra time. But the Daniel GLIs and Zach G. Cox remain

06:06victims of the EFL's emergency loan rule. It's tough for goalkeepers like them to leave a club

06:11and gain valuable experience elsewhere because the reality is their lack of experience can be an

06:15advantage to a club. Provides a certain veil of protection should the number one get injured

06:19during a game, but you can bet the next day the club will be calling the EFL to activate the

06:24emergency loan clause to protect their fake number two if their number one is going to be out for a

06:29number of games. Young goalkeepers are seeing out stopgap contracts and then being released for

06:34copycat successes. Sure, they've had involvement in a professional environment, but their CV boasts

06:38a big fat zero next to professional appearances. What follows is an inevitable drop into non-league

06:44in a bid to start the journey again, but fail to perform at that level or even worse get injured

06:48and the dream of professional football can quickly slip through a court keeper's hands.

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