ARSENAL will have William Saliba back from his loan spell at Saint-Etienne when the Premier League resumes – but can he play?
The coronavirus pandemic has led to the early end of the French football season, where the centre-back made 17 appearances for the Ligue 1 team.
Fans are eagerly awaiting £27million man pulling on an Arsenal kit for the first time.
But he will not be able to feature when the Gunners get back underway on June 17.
SunSport understands that any loan players returning to their parent clubs ahead of the season’s delayed climax cannot be registered for the competition.
Game bosses are faced with a number of complex rules that must be altered temporarily to account for the Covid-19 crisis.
In the case of loan players, there must be a three-party agreement between the clubs and player to extend their stay past the initial June 30 cut-off date.
For Arsenal, this includes Henrikh Mhkitaryan’s stint at Roma and Konstantinos Mavrapanos’s loan to Nurnberg.
The club must also figure out a way of keeping Pablo Mari, Dani Ceballos and Cedric Soares.
However, perhaps as a way of preventing parent clubs from being tempted to bring loan players back into their squads, returning players will not be able to play in 2019/20.
Likewise, any stars with contracts expiring at the end of the month must negotiate a new deal to see out the season, at least.
A deadline of June 23 has been handed down to finalise these negotiations.
David Luiz and reserve goalkeeper Matt Macey are the only two senior Arsenal players nearing the end of their contracts.
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