Posted July 30, 200717 yr From the TOCWS: Alex was due to arrive into England yesterday to discuss personal terms.Chelsea Football Club are in the process of applying for a work permit for the player in line with normal football and employment procedure. At airport immigration there was a request to clarify Alex's current status. All of the paperwork for his entry was in order. After an initial delay, he was cleared to enter the country. He chose voluntarily to fly back but will return when necessary.
July 30, 200717 yr From the TOCWS:Alex was due to arrive into England yesterday to discuss personal terms.Chelsea Football Club are in the process of applying for a work permit for the player in line with normal football and employment procedure. At airport immigration there was a request to clarify Alex's current status. All of the paperwork for his entry was in order. After an initial delay, he was cleared to enter the country. He chose voluntarily to fly back but will return when necessary. I am confused. He was due yesterday to discuss personal terms, so he flies in, the immigration request to clarify his status is satisfied and he is given a clearance but he decides to fly back(?) and return when necessary(?) If it wasn't necessary for him to come yesterday, why was he due to come? And once he spent hours on a plane and a few more at the airport he decides to go back without getting anything done? WTF?
July 30, 200717 yr Author Yeah same here. The BBC say we have applied for a work permit: [web]http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/6274174.stm[/web]
July 30, 200717 yr The only thing I can think is that they had the meeting at the airport to agree personal terms in principal and now Chelsea are applying for a permit. Since that could take a while he has chosen to go back and spend some more time in Brazil. You can hardly blame him since his summer was mainly spent at the Copa America. Hopefully we can get this sorted out before the transfer window closes or else we may have to wait until January. I don't understand why we waited this long to apply for a permit.
July 30, 200717 yr How did Anderson get a permit to play for the mancs? He played 45 minutes in Copa America, while Alex played all matches in full and spent last three years in Netherlands. Lucas that has signed for scousers came straight from Gremio. What possible excuse can they have to deny permit to Alex when these two have been cleared?
July 31, 200717 yr What makes me laugh with all this work-permit/red-tape nonsense is that they are coming here to earn vast amounts of money and will have their names in our national papers on a daily/weekly basis. It's not as though they are going to dissappear after their visa runs out to go mini cabbing in the WEst-end is it
July 31, 200717 yr How did Anderson get a permit to play for the mancs? He played 45 minutes in Copa America, while Alex played all matches in full and spent last three years in Netherlands.Lucas that has signed for scousers came straight from Gremio. What possible excuse can they have to deny permit to Alex when these two have been cleared? There is a clause in the permit legislation that allows people who are outstanding in their field to appeal their case for a work permit. In football the clause applies to young U-23 players, Alex is 24 so doesn't qualify. It's the same clause that we used to get the likes of Kalou and Ben Sahar.
July 31, 200717 yr Stick him in a crate and we'll pick him up at Dover. If the authorities try to deport him we'll say he'll be killed if he's sent back home. It's worked for millions of others with out guaranteed employment so why not him with his 30k a week wages? We'll just let him know to stay well clear of Stockwell tube.
July 31, 200717 yr this leaves us in crisis apparently... Alex's airport walkout deepens Chelsea's crisisDominic Fifield Tuesday July 31, 2007 The Guardian Chelsea's pre-season lurched into crisis last night as it emerged that Alex, the centre-half whose presence would have alleviated a worsening injury list, has returned to his native Brazil after being informed by customs officials at Heathrow that he was unlikely to qualify for a work permit. The 25-year-old, who has spent the past two seasons "parked" at PSV Eindhoven while Chelsea waited to secure his move to Stamford Bridge, had arrived in England on Sunday, following a period of extended leave after the Copa Am?rica, hoping to negotiate personal terms on a four-year deal with the club. However, immigration officers scrutinising his case at the airport indicated that he was unlikely to qualify for a permit because he had failed to play the required minimum number of international games since 2005. Alex, growing frustrated at the delay at customs, boarded a flight back to Brazil. Chelsea insisted last night that they had anticipated the centre-half would not qualify immediately for the permit. Home Office regulations state that a non-European Union player must feature in 75% of his country's competitive senior matches for which he is available in the preceding two years to be granted permission to work in the United Kingdom. Despite helping Brazil win the tournament in Venezuela, in which he featured in all six of their games, Alex has played in only eight of Brazil's last 14 competitive matches. However, the club's lawyers are confident the decision will be reviewed at a hearing next week, in much the same way that Arsenal are hopeful for their Brazilian-born Croatia international Eduardo da Silva. Nevertheless Alex's decision to return to Rio rather than enter the country to await a final decision came as a surprise. Indeed, he did not even wait for confirmation to filter through that a permit would not be forthcoming. "At airport immigration there was a request to clarify Alex's current status," confirmed a Chelsea spokesman. "After an initial delay he was cleared to enter the country. He chose voluntarily to fly back but will return when necessary." "We have a duty to ensure that the public are aware of, and have confidence in, the security in place at the border, which is for their protection," said the strategic director of border control, Brodie Clark. "Visitors to the UK need to be aware of the presence of immigration officers and that they will be subject to checks before being granted entry to this country." Alex, whose excellent display helped PSV eliminate Arsenal from last season's Champions League, would not have been immediately available to Jose Mourinho but his absence has done little to improve the mood within the squad. Six players - Andriy Shevchenko, Paulo Ferreira, John Terry, Arjen Robben, Claude Makelele and Michael Essien - missed training yesterday and Mikel John Obi and Lassana Diarra joined them in the treatment room after the session, the latter having damaged a knee in a challenge with Steve Sidwell. Salomon Kalou and Ashley Cole both participated yesterday but remain troubled by shoulder and ankle complaints respectively. Michael Ballack remains in rehabilitation after two operations on an ankle injury and Wayne Bridge has been ruled out for three months after surgery on a hip injury, making 12 members of Mourinho's first-team squad who are either sidelined with injury or labouring badly with the new league season less than two weeks away. Chelsea play Manchester United in Sunday's Community Shield and, although they open their league campaign at home to Birmingham and travel to Reading in midweek, they face Liverpool at Anfield on August 18 with concern already growing about the state of the squad's fitness before that potentially awkward fixture. im really not convinced Alex is all that anyway. But crisis ? Do me a f**king favor.
July 31, 200717 yr When did we stop being Chelsea Football Club and become Chelsea crisis club, the season has'nt even started yet and i can hear those knives sharpening.
July 31, 200717 yr I think that?s poor journalism by Dominic Fifield of The Guardian (I?ve read similar uninformed reports in The Sun and Daily Mail). Whatever happened at the airport (and I have my own theory about it) has nothing to do with Alex being denied entry into the UK, as the club?s statement is clear as to the fact that after an initial delay, he was granted permission to enter. Indeed, the club made it clear also that he left back to Brazil voluntarily and would return when necessary as his work permit application is just being processed. Fifield claims Alex returned to Brazil after being told by immigration officials that he?s unlikely to get a work permit because he did not qualify having not played 75% as a Brazil international. Of course, this is not true, because the club statement makes clear that the application is just being made, which is understandable, since they are still discussing personal terms. More importantly, the 75% is not absolute; it is only one of the criteria needed for a successful application. Where a player does not meet that requirement, the Border and Immigration Agency can refer such an application to an independent panel which shall consider the application based on two terms of reference: (1) whether the player is of the highest calibre and (2) whether the player is able to contribute significantly to the development of the game at the top level in the UK. Of course, Alex easily qualifies on these grounds, considering also that places in his national team are amongst the most competitive in the world and nearly all of his international caps have come only with the relatively recent appointment of Dunga as his national team coach. Though the airport mix-up has obviously provided the gutter press with an opportunity for mischief, there?s no doubt that Alex will join the club this season. http://www.workingintheuk.gov.uk/workin ... ayers.html
July 31, 200717 yr When did we stop being Chelsea Football Club and become Chelsea crisis club, the season has'nt even started yet and i can hear those knives sharpening. The press don't need the start of the season for stirring things up about Chelsea - everything is a crisis according to them. Although this whole thing about Alex turniing tail and going back home again seems odd. Does make us look a bit disorganised even if we have got everything covered in reality.
August 2, 200717 yr Nice one. I wonder if that now means we will stop chasing Alves? Hopefully Alex will be in the squad in time for the start of the season.
August 2, 200717 yr Nice one. I wonder if that now means we will stop chasing Alves? I don't think that Alex transfer affects our interest in Alves, that is if there is an actual interest and not the made up tabloid crap which is just as likely. They're very different players.
