JEFF POWELL: The loan system was not designed for Chelsea to sign Gonzalo Higuain

Before the window closed on the day the transfer was due, the light shone on the unfairness of the Premier League clubs operating the loan system.

When this mechanism was unblocked for the first time, it was not designed for Chelsea to beg Juventus to let Argentina World Cup striker Gonzalo Higuain go to London for a time or Arsenal who borrows the prodigy Spanish Denis Suarez as he waits for his place in the midfield of Barcelona.

No, the idea was that the promising youngsters from the big clubs would be cultivated for a first team experience while helping the teams at the bottom of the divisions.

The loan system was not designed for a team such as Chelsea who would implore Juventus for Gonzalo Higuain

This equation was good for all concerned and healthy for football.

What is happening now is a cynical game of the system that, without being illegal, is downright immoral.

The blame is shared with football administrators.

The Premier League should never have sanctioned loans between its member clubs in the first place.

UEFA should not have followed in approving the short-term hiring of players between top European league clubs – such as Higuain and Suarez, respectively in Serie A and in La Liga.

Arsenal borrows Denis Suarez while waiting for a place in the midfield of Barcelona

This is also true for Newcastle who borrowed left-back Antonio Barreca in Monaco.

Such movements were not even imagined during the formalization of the system in England in 1966, the year of the World Cup. Loans were not allowed between clubs of the same division.

In 2003, money spoke louder and louder and this restriction was lifted.

This paved the way for the frenzy of lending that lawyers described as "similar to the Wild West" in its lack of governance but more related to a meat market.

Big names like Higuain are only the tip of this food chain.

Chelsea has some 40 players on loan in Britain and Europe. This is an astonishing number, but they are not the only among the Premier League giants to accumulate the youth they may or may not need in the future by letting other clubs pay their salaries in the meantime.

But many of these perspectives, their broken hearts and crushed futures, are never heard again.

Chelsea has about 40 players on loan in Britain and Europe and most will never play

FIFA has finally begun to act to slow down this train of cattle. At the start of the 2020-21 season, they plan to limit – to six or eight – the number of players that any club can have on loan at the same time.

But nothing prevents players from being loaned to the Premier League or clubs of similar stature abroad.

And that's where the fair conditions of football are trampled on for a questionable cause of commercial convenience. This can tip the balance in favor of a borrowing club, especially at this crucial point of the season.

Such a restriction would force clubs to be accountable to the players they recruited, especially young people.

As such, they can hide their poor judgment of much of the horse flesh that they freely recruit by taking away the payroll.

We are waiting to see what will happen to Suarez and Barreca.

FIFA has begun to act to slow down this cattle train with limits to be put in place in the near future

But already Higuain's arrival coincided with Chelsea's 4-0 defeat at Bournemouth – their heaviest defeat in the league for over 20 years – and its replacement by what appears to be a recurring back pain.

Perhaps poetic justice for his longtime admirer, manager Maurizio Sarri, especially if he finds himself leaving Chelsea before Higuain.

But the biggest question is the one that asks football to regulate its own scourge of usurers.

And do it before the next window cracks open.