I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Football clubs tend to have a load of players on the books from an early age as many won't ever make the grade or be good enough for the first team. For every Messi and Ronaldo they manage to develop there are hundreds if not thousands who don't live up to expectations or get injured etc. They spend a lot on developing them so instead of just sitting on the bench or playing in the B-Team they go and get some real world experience and it's a good tester for the original club to see who's going to be good enough.
It further divides the gap between the rich and the poor. There's no real way to protect young players, and these top clubs poach youngsters that are 15-16 years old, even younger.
Then they cannot give them playing time, so they loan them out.
A player from, let's say, Preston is a huge potential in 14-yo categories. Preston has no way to keep him, although they had him since he was 5 years old. Let's say Arsenal got him, the case goes to tribunal, Preston gets pennies (few million tops).
Otherwise, the player would have played for Preston aged 16. Now he's in Arsenal, he can't, so he goes to 3 loans until he's 21 years old. After that he almost always gets sold for profit and his base club gets nothing.
The system is shitty and needs to be changed, otherwise let's just speed it all up and have no money limit Superleagues.
That is what the free market gets you.
Do you remember how it was in Yugoslavia? Players couldn't leave our local league before they were 28 years old.
Something like that will never happen again but some limits should be in place. Or mandatory contracts that club that had player in their ranks for more than 4 years or whatever get a percentage of each subsequent transfer.
