Wolves have been named as one of a handful of clubs that voted against a temporary ban on loaning players from related parties in January.
Yesterday, Premier League clubs voted on whether they would be allowed to loan players in from clubs with the same owners.
There had been a lot of focus on Newcastle United recently, who are owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
There had been reports that the Magpies wanted to sign former Wolves captain Ruben Neves on loan from Al Hilal, with PIF owning them like they do the Magpies. Eddie Howe’s side have a lot of players unavailable at the moment, including Sandro Tonali, who got banned for 10 months for violating betting rules.
PIF own four clubs in Saudi, and Newcastle will now be able to sign players on loan from any of those clubs following the vote.
But the outcome of the vote doesn’t just affect them…
Wolves vote against temporary ban on Premier League clubs signing players on loan
News filtered through yesterday that Premier League clubs had voted against banning loans between clubs owned by the same party. Initially, it wasn’t clear how each club had voted.
Yesterday evening, The Times reported that Wolves had voted against the ban, along with Newcastle United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Sheffield United, Everton, Sheffield United and Burnley.
For it to pass, 14 clubs needed to have voted for the ban, which was proposed as a temporary measure until a concrete solution could be agreed before the next summer window.
In the end, just 13 clubs voted for the ban.
Why Wolves may have voted against temporary ban on related-party loans
It is very interesting to see that Wolves were one of a handful of clubs to vote against loaning players from related parties.
Wolves are owned by Fosun, who acquired the club back in 2016.
In November 2020, the wife of Fosun boss Guo Guangchang, Jenny Wang, bought Swiss outfit Grasshoppers who are 27-time league champions, and the two clubs have been working closely together since.
Quite a number of players from Molineux have gone there on loan in recent years, and Grasshoppers have sometimes been described as a ‘feeder club’.
While plenty of players have gone there from Wolves, players moving on loan in the opposite direction has never occurred.
Only Hayao Kawabe has come to Wolves from Grasshoppers and that was a permanent move for a reported £500,000.
Potentially, by voting in the way they did, Wolves may be looking to keep their options open and may see some value in being able to pluck players from Grasshoppers.
It will be very interesting to see if Newcastle now do make a move for Neves in January. Had Wolves voted for the ban, there would have been enough support and it would have passed, preventing the Magpies from landing the Portuguese maestro.