THE career of Harvey Elliott has been interrupted by a damaging loan clause that has led to a standoff between two clubs. It has left an exciting young player with great potential in limbo, unable to play.

Elliott moved on loan from Liverpool to Aston Villa in the 2025 summer transfer window in a deal that cost Villa an initial loan fee of £5 million and also included a £35m obligation to buy clause at the end of the contract.

However, this obligation to buy clause would only be triggered after he had played 10 games for his new club and it is this part of the deal that has led to the stalling of his career.

On joining Villa, the 22-year-old made appearances in five consecutive games across the Premier League, EFL Cup, and Europa League, but after initial enthusiasm, the club appears to have decided the £35m fee is not something they are willing to pay. As a result, they are leaving him out of the team so the clause is not triggered.

In the world of profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) and financial fair-play (FFP), clubs, especially those just outside the few big revenue generators, need to make sure that when they spend money they are spending it wisely.

As it turned out, Aston Villa decided that signing Elliott for that sum would not be financially prudent at this time.

This situation has coincided with the departure from the club of sporting director Monchi, who left in December, around a month after Elliott suddenly stopped featuring in Villa matches. 

Since October, Elliott has been left out of the Villa matchday squad entirely on 19 occasions, which could have been around the time that it began to be known internally that Monchi might be leaving or that disagreements between the sporting director and coaching staff began to arise.

Even with previous internal disagreements, and the decision by those in charge of sporting direction at Aston Villa that a £35m deal for Elliott would not make financial sense, there is no doubt that Unai Emery sees at least some use in the talented young player. 

Even if the Villa manager is among those who don’t think the £35m outlay makes sense at this moment in time, were the obligation to buy not in place, he has shown he would be willing to use Elliott in certain circumstances to help the team.

Emery has said that his Villa team need Elliott’s qualities on the field and also indicated they have been negotiating with Liverpool for months to remove the obstructive clause.

Elliott’s parent club are standing firm, perhaps wary that reneging on this part of the contract in this scenario would put them in a weaker position in similar situations in the future.

Each club is looking after its own interests, rather than those of the player who, at this stage, just needs to play regular football, but has instead been left watching from the sidelines.

It’s another example of the direction the game has taken, embracing late-stage capitalism and the way players are now viewed in top-level football, where teams have become business operations rather than sports clubs.

Elliott himself is probably regretting agreeing to the contract, though it is likely verbal promises were made at the time. This is where agents should step in at the negotiations stage and make sure this kind of situation cannot transpire. Like the player himself, the agent may well have been assured by Monchi that the clause would not be an issue, but there is always the possibility in football that those agreeing to a transfer one month will not be there the next.

Liverpool and Aston Villa both fighting for a place in the Champions League qualification places has further complicated matters and is another competitive financial consideration that has interrupted the career of a player who, with regular playing time, would surely be in England national team contention by now.

It is the kind of playing time Elliott has sought for several seasons. 

He was only a bit-part player in Liverpool’s 24-25 title-winning campaign last year, but nevertheless played a useful role in Arne Slot’s debut season, one you could have imagined him performing again in 25-26, perhaps with even more involvement given Liverpool’s struggles this term, and Mohamed Salah’s involvement in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Elliott understandably wanted first-team football, though, and at the age of 22, he needs to be playing regularly in order to fulfil the potential that has been evident since he made his debut for Fulham, aged 15, in 2018.

He has been a popular character at whichever club he has played, including during a successful loan stint at Blackburn, where he made 41 appearances in the 20-21 Championship season. The 2,758 minutes he played for the Lancashire club that season remain his most in a league season by over 1000 minutes.

On Elliott’s return to Merseyside, former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp had started to use him more often. He played over 1000 league minutes in each of Klopp’s last two seasons at the club, but his playing time dropped to just 360 minutes in the league under Slot, hence the search for a bigger role elsewhere.

It’s one he thought he might find at Villa, in a team pushing for Champions League places, and at one point this season, looking like title contenders. But any further involvement has been scuppered by Villa’s early-season problems leading to Monchi’s departure, Liverpool’s refusal to change the terms of the loan deal, and the one part of the contract that is causing all of the problems for the player in the first place.

The simple way to avoid a situation like this happening again would be for players’ unions, such as the Professional Footballers’ Association, to push to outlaw obligation to buy clauses that are dependent on playing time or appearances. 

Until it is outlawed, players’ agents should refuse to include the clause in deals for their clients, and if there needs to be additional clauses, stick with the more flexible “option to buy” clauses, or obligations to buy that don’t require certain criteria to be met.

This situation and others like it also show that players’ unions need to be stronger in the modern game, as players become increasingly commodified through trading, transfers, valuation, and the collection of their data. 

It also reinforces the idea that, rather than working independently of those unions, which brings a temptation to act in the interest of the agency rather than the player, agents should be part of or at least work alongside those unions.

Hopefully a resolution can be found and we’ll see Elliott back playing sooner rather than later.