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 2 goalkeeper changes depending on the size of the club. For the

00:07very biggest teams, such as the money and data poured into choosing a number 1, anyone

00:11brought in below is expected to sit tight, stay fit and enjoy their annual run out in

00:15the early rounds of the Carabao Cup. Further down the Premier League, there's also often

00:19the chance to displace a regular custodian, be they form or fitness, eventually working

00:23your favour. The unfancied Jason Steele unseated Robert Sanchez at Brighton last season largely

00:27because of his better work with the ball at his feet. But scale down the footballing

00:31pyramid to where every single penny counts, and the number 2 goalkeeper is slowly, quietly

00:36becoming a controversial topic in football. Men sign not to play second fiddle, but specifically

00:41to exploit the loophole in the rules by not playing at all. This is the rise of the fake

00:47number 2 goalkeeper.

00:49Daniel Goli is a former Hungarian under-21 goalkeeper. Now 26, he's just been released

00:53by national league side Maidenhead United. 10 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

01:02City. He began playing for their under-21 and under-18 sides, all the while earning

01:06caps for Hungary's international youth teams up to under-21 level. In 2016 and 2017, he

01:11was loaned to local non-league side Nantwich Town and played a total of 8 games there.

01:15In 2018, Stoke were relegated to the championship. At this stage, Daniel is 21 and hasn't played

01:20a minute of senior football in the English Football League. That's just 2 EFL trophy

01:24games on his CV.

01:25At the end of Stoke's first season in the championship, they finished 16th. Daniel was

01:28released. Wigan signed him. He was named on the bench by the Lads four times in the 2019-20

01:33season, but didn't play a single minute of football. Wigan released him when he signed

01:37for Peterborough in League 1, and was named their number 2 goalkeeper for the 2020-21

01:41season. After 39 appearances on the bench for Posh, their number 1 goalkeeper, Christy

01:45Pim, picked up an injury. Finally, Daniel's big chance? No. Why? Because he is a fake

01:51number 2 goalkeeper.

01:53Instead of handing their young Hungarian number 2 his first ever minute of senior football,

01:56Peterborough chose to activate the EFL's Emergency Goalkeeper Loan Clause. This allows

02:00them to bring in a replacement goalkeeper with more experience on loan for 7 days because

02:04they had no professional goalkeepers available in the eyes of the EFL. Crucially, the EFL's

02:10definition of a professional goalkeeper is a goalkeeper excluding any goalkeeper registered

02:14as a non-contract player who has been named in the starting XI on 5 or more occasions

02:18by any club or a Premier League club in any matches in the relevant league or first team

02:23cup competitions other than the EFL trophy. Emergency goalkeeper loans last a week, but

02:28can be extended in weekly increments. At this stage, Daniel is 24 and has made zero appearances

02:33in a professional league or cup game. The loophole meant he remained on Peterborough's

02:37bench with Joe Bursick joining on emergency loan from, oh cruel irony, Stoke City.

02:43To make matters worse, Bursick is 3 years younger than Daniel and had played 15 games

02:47in Ligue 1 via a loan to Doncaster that season. Bursick was recalled by Stoke that season

02:52during a goalkeeping crisis and played 10 further championship games for them, a dizzying

02:5625 senior games to his name comfortably qualifying him as a professional goalkeeper in the eyes

03:01of the EFL. Football is cruel, and it got crueler for Daniel. That summer he was put

03:06on 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 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

03:23injury. It means he's unlikely to play football again until 2024. What's worse is the fact

03:28he will have to start without a club as Maidenhead released him at the beginning of June. After

03:33all, 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, Conor Ripley

03:41was signed for Salford for Preston on an emergency loan that was extended four times. He played

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

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

03:55having been signed on loan by Salford for the season from Birmingham. Geacock returned

03:59to Birmingham towards the end of the 2021-22 season and played two first team games, concealing

04:0410 goals. Now 22, he has just 24 games on his CV but only a handful of these are in

04:10the AFL. The rest are non-league appearances. You could argue he's miles off first team

04:14football at any professional level and way behind where a 22-year-old keeper with his

04:18talent could be. Goalkeeping structure has changed. Fake number

04:22twos are likely to become more common while the emergency loan option exists. The clause

04:27is actually designed in theory to protect inexperienced young goalkeepers from being

04:30thrown in the deep end in the AFL, but it's also potentially taking crucial senior minutes

04:35away from slightly older goalkeepers like Daniel Gioli and Zach Geacock.

04:40Post of the GK Union podcast, Matt Beadle points out that incredibly, Grimsby didn't

04:44have a number two goalkeeper in their matchday squad for most of their games last season.

04:48Beadle also predicts that soon, most League 1 and League 2 number one goalkeepers will

04:51be loaned in from the Premier League and Championship. In the Premier League, clubs will have a strong

04:56number one, a strong number two and more recently a semi-strong and ultimately reliable number

05:00three, he explains. High profile examples of reliable number threes this season include

05:05Manchester 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.

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

05:18budget for a League 2 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.

05:30They 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 Eistead is a goalkeeper who you could

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

05:47from Luton this January, having played less than five EFL games in a very malnourished

05:51career. He turned 26 in March. Eistead performed well at Barnsley, almost helping them seal

05:56promotion to the Championship via the playoffs and was unofficial man of the match in the

05:59final versus Sheffield Wednesday, making an incredible save in extra time.

06:03But the Daniel G-O-Lies and Zach G-Cox remain victims of the EFL's emergency loan rule.

06:09It's tough for goalkeepers like them to leave a club and gain valuable experience elsewhere

06:13because the reality is their lack of experience can be an advantage to a club. It provides

06:17a certain veil of protection should the number one get injured during a game. But you can

06:21bet the next day the club will be calling the EFL to activate the emergency loan clause

06:25to protect their fake number two if their number one is going to be out for a number

06:29of games. Young goalkeepers are seeing out stop-gap contracts and then being released

06:34for copycat successes. Sure, they've had involvement in a professional environment

06:37but their CV boasts a big fat zero next to professional appearances. What follows is

06:42an inevitable drop into non-league in a bid to start the journey again. But fail to perform

06:47at that level or even worse get injured and the dream of professional football could quickly

06:51slip through a goalkeeper's hands.

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