Preston chairman Derek Shaw has spoken out lest his club become embroiled in a potential controversy over the use of the system of emergency loans outside of the new transfer windows.
Shaw told the Lancashire Evening Post that, as far as the Deepdale club are concerned, Etuhu is on loan at Carrow Road for two months. Any talk of a permanent deal should be put on hold until January, he said, in case FIFA decide to look more closely at the increasingly frequent and, it has to be said, questionnable, use of 'emergency' loans.
While City have had their share of injuries to a squad depleted in numbers when high-earning Premiership signings left in the summer, the midfield situation could scarcely be said to constitute an emergency, although the Canaries' recent form might suggest otherwise.
Probably more worrying for Shaw, and presumably the authorities, would be the use of the loan system for deals like Nathan Tyson's move from Wycombe Wanderers to Nottingham Forest.
The transfer of one of League One's top scorers, and Wycombe's most prized asset, to a bigger club in the same division, is the sort of deal that will really test the system. It seems unlikely that the apparent privileges afforded to clubs in the Football League, but nobody else, will continue to be open to interpretation for too much longer.