Suspicions that Manchester City might be stockpiling players in order to prevent them signing for rivals could lead to the Premier League reviving attempts to outlaw player loans.

Digger can reveal that Richard Scudamore has twice made efforts to introduce rules preventing players from being loaned between top-flight clubs. The Premier League chief executive believes they are unnecessary since clubs' domestic-broadcast incomes, amounting to a minimum of £50m each from this season, mean there is plenty of cash to pay for outright transfers.

The moves were overruled by both the wealthier and the less-rich clubs as restrictive to their attempts respectively to farm out and to host players. Yet with City's first-team squad now expanding to 38 players, there is evidence the mood is shifting.

Last week Tottenham Hotspur's manager, Harry Redknapp, hinted that he thought City — whose wage offers have put players out of competitors' reach — were dictating which clubs their surplus-to-requirements players could play at. Redknapp predicted that Craig Bellamy would be prevented from playing at a club with Champions League pretensions. "I couldn't see them loaning him to someone like us," he said, before the Welshman signed for Cardiff City.

Some Serie A clubs did stockpile players in the 90s but City consider themselves victims of circumstance: no one will match their players' wages. The 25-man squad limits being introduced next Tuesday may have some influence.

But with no limit to the number of players clubs may loan out in any given season, there is nothing to prevent City – whose owner's spending was revealed here yesterday as having reached half a billion pounds – purchasing players who will never get a game for them.

Fifa's cloudy transparency

Serious accusations have been made in the international press about the allegedly corrupt activities of a Fifa executive-committee member over ticketing at the World Cup this summer. The member in question did not return calls yesterday, so Digger asked Fifa whether there had been any attempts to substantiate the claims, or if there was any intention to do so. It's unlikely. "As a general principle, Fifa does not comment on media allegations," said an unnamed spokesman in an email (Fifa's head of communications, Nicolas Maingot, did not return calls.)

With staff so keen to protect their ex-co superiors' interests, can we really trust the dispassionate judgment of Fifa's technical inspectors who have been assessing the England 2018 World Cup bid this week? Four of the six delegates were paid employees of Fifa's Zurich head office. Fortunately the technical report will be released publicly in November in advance of the 2 December decision, so at least it will be transparent enough.

Brown returns

West Ham United's unpopular former owner, Straumur, has reduced its shareholding in the club in favour of another unpopular former owner. Terry Brown, the former chairman whose latter years at the club were characterised by the Brown Out campaign, is among the minority investors that have bought 3.8% of the club. That takes the equity interest of Straumur and its fellow Icelandic-bank shareholders, through the special-purpose investment vehicle CB Holding, down to 35% from 40%. The co-chairmen, David Sullivan and David Gold, below, each hold the two remaining stakes of 30.6%. The dealings seemingly cost £2m. And if so then Brown has become involved again for less than half the price at which he sold out in 2006, when he netted more than £30m in the fateful deal with Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson.

Starnes's sparse point

This column's focus on Yeovil Town's creation of a separate holding company for property assets has led to the chief executive, Martyn Starnes, telling the local press about a "detailed response" to questions that has "yet to be acknowledged" by Digger. So here goes: Starnes sent an email, but details were sparse. The most interesting point was his comment that: "Any development that may be achievable on the Huish Park site is going to be no more or less beneficial to the shareholders in the holding company than in the football club." Digger's response was that the decoupling of the property assets makes them separately tradable for the benefit of individuals, as opposed to the club, which is not itself a shareholder in the holding company. It has yet to be acknowledged.