Mark Hudson has confirmed that Mark McGuinness is back in the building at Cardiff City but the club are waiting on a FIFA technicality before they are able to officially re-register him as a player.
The Bluebirds were the subject of a transfer embargo in this window owing to the failure to pay the first instalment of the transfer fee for Emiliano Sala to Nantes.
This week, Cardiff paid that first instalment, believed to be around £7m including interest, and we learned that the transfer embargoes had been lifted.
READ MORE: Mark Hudson press conference in full
The EFL's transfer embargo is in two parts, meaning Cardiff are able to trade in this window, however they are only able to bring in loan players and free transfers. FIFA's criteria for their ban to be lifted has also been met, however Cardiff are still waiting for the official green light before they can get to work.
McGuinness has had a fantastic first half of the season at Sheffield Wednesday and the Bluebirds were keen to recall him.
Speaking about the 22-year-old's situation, Hudson said: "Yeah, he's back training. We're just waiting on a technicality with FIFA for the moment, so that hasn't come through yet as of yet. We're still waiting on an update but he is back with us, training."
Asked for further clarification on the FIFA embargo, the Bluebirds boss added: "The club have worked extremely hard to pay the instalment and I think there's a period of time where then FIFA will lift theirs and obviously then, that would go hand in hand with Macca's (McGuinness) situation.
"We worked really hard behind the scenes to get that lifted. And we'll we'll know more today, I would think."
McGuinness has certainly impressed up at Hillsborough, hitting form for the promotion-chasing League One side and he has been a regular in Darren Moore's team.
Coming back down to Cardiff will be a different challenge for him, though, and he must now integrate with a totally new group halfway through the season.
"I spoke to Macca regularly, even when he was in Sheffield, I used to do his reviews and go through it with him," Hudson continued.
"He came in yesterday. So we had good conversations about the time he's had and what was required from him up there, the three main things he was working on and how he was playing within that team.
"There'll be a lot of video footage for him to see about what we've been doing and how we've been doing it. So we'll sit with him and go through that as well, which is again about learning because it's a different way of playing in a different team.
"He's got to gel. He's had to travel down. So yeah, there's lots of little little bits that we can get him up to speed with and get them integrated with this group because it's a new group for him.
Asked if he had seen a marked improvement in the defender's game, Hudson replied: "Yeah, his consistency has been very good. His consistency of performance.
"The run that they've been on as well goes hand in hand, really. So he has been brilliant and done really well up there. He is a top kid and a great character. He's raring to go."
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