Chelsea to sign Alex - ?

[all_funkt_up]

Its well known that Chelsea own the Brazillian defender Alex. They have done so since 2004 and he has been on loan at PSV for that time as he was inelligible for a work permit.

He arrived into the UK yesterday, had some problems with his paperwork and "voluntarily" flew all the way back to Brazil.

Sky Sports news announced last night that Chelsea were to apply for a work permit for the player. Surely they should have done that months ago, so that he would be able to train with the Chelsea team now.

Very very disorganised IMO. Plus as well, I am sure I read that to qualify for a work permit, you need to have played 75% of your country's International games over the past 2 years. Well Alex has played only 57% of Brazil's internationals over that period (8 out of 14 games).

There's something fishy out this, I can smell it from here.

[all_funkt_up]

Am I missing something here? This is how the BBC cover's the Alex story:

Chelsea have moved closer to completing a deal for Brazil defender Alex by applying for a work permit

Yet today's Times seems slightly more pessamistic:

Chelsea’s proposed transfer of Alex was thrown into chaos after the defender became so fed up with being questioned by immigration officials that he got on a plane back to his native Brazil

I dont think this is as "open and shut" as the Beeb would have us believe. This one will run and run....

[pelatis]

The Work Permit system of England is the reason for the really high prices of local players and the high transfer fees paid by English clubs for EU players (who don't need WP). It does nothing to help English players remain at clubs (it is pretty common for England's GK to be from Championship) and you can always bring some small nation international who will be of lower quality than an International of Argentina or Brazil or even a youngster from these countries.

The prequisites for Work Permit are so high that in fact no Brazil international
(except Robinho) could get a WP.