Arsenal are ready to appeal against FIFA’s decision to reject their work permit application for forward Wellington Silva. Arsène Wenger went to football’s governing body on Thursday to fight the Brazilians case.
Silva is not eligible for a United Kingdom work visa as he doesn’t meet the Home Office’s strict immigration criteria. It’s a problem Arsenal have encountered on various occasions, with mixed results. One of the solutions is to apply to FIFA and make a case for a ‘special talent’ visa and seek an exception to the rules. This proved fruitful in the case of Denílson, who was in a similar situation to Wellington.
However, Arsenal have had applications rejected before. Carlos Vela, Pedro Botelho and Samuel Galindo have all failed to meet the ruling. The Gunners were aware of this potential, but reassurances were given to the club that he would be awarded the visa two months ago. The player himself noted last night that Wenger travelling to FIFA to secure his release was a formality.
Yet Wenger was forced to return to England without a successful conclusion. Arsenal have grounds to appeal the decision and should remain hopeful they will finally be granted the paperwork and will be able to register the striker on his 18th birthday in January. Should the appeal fail, a loan spell is all but certain.
The Spanish Segunda has been home to many of Arsenal’s foreign talents in recent years, as criteria needed to earn a work visa there is less strict. Yet Silva would need to spend between three and five seasons in Spain before he is eligible to apply for Spanish citizenship. Then, under EU rules, he would be free to move to England.
No date has been set for an appeal.
We should send him to Belgian instead of Spain.
Salamanca are useless in playing Arsenal players.
We need a feeder club where Silva’s talent will flourish…not restricted. Think the sort of deal we had with Eboue at Beveren.
I thought the visa had already been granted ?.
I try and answer everybody’s questions, Marucs, but you can find that answer by just reading this article or the previous one.
a travesty! am i right in saying this is the same legislation that cost us the signing of the one and only ronaldinho??
That said, I think we’ll get the work permit. Fifa are just pissed, but I’m sure we’ll somehow get the necessary approval after we hire someone to “pay” a special visit to those in charge.
Dats gud news.. U sound confident jamie that he will be granted a work permit through a successful appeal… U might say that if he wasn’t granted de work permit he might never play 4 arsenal.. A loan wud be gud experience bt he wud develop alot better wit arsenal..
what is this talk abt a ronaldinho deal falling through becoz of this visa thing? could someone explain?
@ HirooNakamura – We tried to sign Ronnie before he first made it big in europe, the same thing happened, FIFA reject both the original VISA and the exceptional talent VISA, so we missed out on him. Bloody FIFA.
Jamie,
Last season, I read that Botelho should be granted an EU passport by January 2011.
Is that still true or there are further complications from Home Office granting him a work permit?
wao, i didn’t know we almost had ronaldinho.. The FA should do something to change their own system. English clubs will lose out on this area of scouting talents from non-EU countries. Just hopes that the primer league clubs can come together to appeal to Home office
I hope we get this lad. Though, it is funny/sad/thought provoking to think that Denilson, too, once was considered as a “special talent”…
Hmmm, FIFA promising something and, then, not delivering. Sounds familiar…
If I remember it correctly Di Maria was also denied a ‘special visa’ other vise he would have been playing with us
JS hows wellington silva been in 1st team training?
I have heard hes given clichy alot of problems at London colney.
Have you see him train? Whats his attitude like by all acounts his club fluminese werent impressed.
I could not imagine our invincible team with Ronaldinho on it to. Remember that year he won the fifa world player of the year to. Also Barcelona would have still been crappy and who knows what would have happened. Maybe we would be the top dog now. I hate the English rules regarding this. It is a real shame.
This is very frustrating, not so much the decision but the backtracking. If you can’t secure a work permit for a player you shouldn’t be able to waste money on a player like we potentially have here. However i think the rules need to be strict (not corrupt) to make sure home federations develop young players from their home nations which is much more efficent and desirable in the long run.
If we had ronaldinho in our team we would have won the CL in our invincible season and would have given chelsea alot closer run for their money in 05. Who knows where we’d be now though…
Why is everyone hating on Denilson? He is good man.
I love Denilson’s holding ball technique but I would love to see him improving on his physical. He is expected to play defensive rules with Song right now, but he is so weak and fragile, especially when he chases the counter attacks. He is still young, so I really hope he can improve.
It’s hard to imagine Denilson getting a Visa based on exceptional Soccer talents. Maybe he is a special talent with other kind of balls.
Please Jamie, what about Samuel Galindo, is he not also arriving in January? Again please, what are the possibilities of winning this appeal?
send him to USA then back to england fulstop.obama will order for the release of that permit immediately.what will fifa do?the sky is our limit.
useless fifa.that is a special talent.
what the fuck is this ? Moronic immigration rules,we have a gem in hand and it seems like it is going to be useless,atleast for a few more years.
The HO really doesn’t get it with such strict visa requirements. If its goal is to restrict the amount of foreigners, well, the EU-route blows a hole in that. The requirements that went into force this season regarding homegrown players should be enough. There’s really no need for a dual system, which really just places the English leagues at a disadvantage compared to other leagues around. Just look at Barcelona. They can consistently grab young kids from all over the world and develop them from the very beginning. That doesn’t seem to mess with the quality of domestic players. We only need to look at what Spain did.
I really hope Wenger somehow gets the ruling overturned on appeal. Wellington is already 18. If he gets stuck in Spain for another 3-4 years, his development would really be stunted. His chances of somehow qualifying via the regular route (by meeting the HO’s criteria for NT experience) is pretty low given the amount of older and more experienced Brazilians running around without even a sniff of NT duty.
HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA ….Denilson …. “special talent”
Ahhhh bless ???
If the appeal fails, can we not withdraw the remaining 50% transfer and part own him? That way he stays in Brazil and plays and if he fulfills his potential then we get him for cheaper than normal Brazilian Internationals, or if a spanish club buys him, we get our money back. He will never be ready for us (in 5 years time!) if he plays spanish league 2 footy!
suck english F..fuck..
A ..assosations.
Dear Jamie,
what news do you have concerning the croatian right back Arsenal seemed to have signed, if we are to believe other websites. I feel much more comfortable when i read it on yours and believe it much more?
thanks for the reply
Get England out of the EU! How come he can go to Spain and not to England? Bullshit.
Is this the same fifa that Wenger recently told publicly that “where still in the middle ages” regarding the world cup voting system…..Hmmmmm I wonder !
im guted. hope we get a ‘stv’ for this kid if we dont he might end up like vela where vela does not play the arsenal way coz he played for segunda clubs and osasuna where he was there best player. if he joined arsenal at 18 im shore he would b a better player……….
Caught the news from Arsenal.com website…
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wellington-to-continue-progress-on-loan
This is not good..still lets hope he can do the biz wherever he is. No matter what he’s our boy
Yes, J. Please clarify. You say FIFA is the organization involved. Arsenal.com say FA. You even said AW had gone to the continent for this. If the decision was taken domestically here in the UK this is a decidedly different matter than what you left most of us thinking.
say “the FA” lol.
Good he’s been rejected. He might be another useless Denilson coming in to collect 50k.
Too many useless foreigners on our payroll not doing much to help the team. Eboue, Almunia, Denilson, Squillaci, Bendtner, Vela have all been found out as waste of money.
yeah J is passing along bad info, piggybacking on the anti-FIFA sentiment in England to peddle this nonsense. FIFA doesn’t have the ability to determine who gets a visa to enter your country. This is strictly the purview of the British Home Office and FA. The FA determines special-ness and the Home office grants the visa.
J, they say wellington will be loaned out,that mean arsenal won’t appeal on the decision or they’re just being too much careful?
Fucking fa and fucking fifa, both are shit and all members should be killed. Yeah! Mancunts can have their brasilian boys cant they? Fucking cunts, song break rafaels legs on monday
Alex, you need to get a life m8….and delete the expletives, don’t forget children read these sites and need not see that you are of limited vocabulary.
Yeah and the info on this site is pathetic ffs
what the hell. I was looking forward to him coming to us in Jan. It seems like FIFA can do whatever they want. Is this for punish wenger for saying he was surprise england didn’t got the WC?
I don’t understand, how come we have to ask FIFA for anything?
Rafael? Ok, he’s a decent little player but his twin is diabolical, yet he got given one? Their Mexican got a work permit on appeal even though he’d barely represented Mexico, even at the age of 21. Galindo represents and captains players three/four years his senior and gets rejected? For real though!?
Anybody wondering why? It’s clearly obvious we need to go a little down that route of corruption to get what we want. AFC have been getting mugged off left, right and centre for years now, and the worst part is that we just accept it for what it is……sick and tired.
Wow. That FIFA have the power to grant visas is absolutely insane.
The Home Office need to change their rules. If Arsene Wenger says a player is good enough to play in this country, let alone for Arsenal, the Home Office should bend over backwards to allow him in to the country, to tax his pay at least.
English clubs are now going to suffer at the hands of Blatter and the Bung takers.
The deal for Vrsaljko and Kovacic seems very advanced but it looks as though both will stay at Dinamo until summer….
Cant understand why we are looking at Connor Wickham though?Ricky van Wolfswinkel would be better and cheaper….
Cant see Ryo Miyaichi getting a visa or work permit now either………
ok it was at barcalona, but it didnt do messi any harm playing in spain at the same age, if wellington is as good as his reputation says he is, he will surely be granted a special talent visa at another date. if not he’l come back to arsenal a few years later with a lot more playing time under shis belt. also the adaption to a european club etc could help the transition. im still excited by this one!!
Its not as if we are short youngsters ready for the first team
Sean are we really looking at Wickham? Lukaku would be better and agree with you on van Wolfswinkel. Deadly striker with great touch!!
I agree with JoeGooner, I think the players would develop far better here that by the time the 3 years is over in spain it has hurt the development to much.
Carlos vela would be 5 times the player if we had him all along now hes struggling in our squad. I think if we get turned down I would pull the plug on the deal even if hes the next ronaldinhio.
We need a fairer way of bringing these players through to our own academy. salamancas not the place for anyone.
No point loaning him to Salamanca, they don’t even play Galindo.