New Chelsea Signing Could Be Denied Work Permit

Filed in archive Transfer/Shmansfer on May 31, 2006

Chelsea's new big money (though not for them) signing could be denied a work permit, rendering him unable to play in the Premiership next season, and it's all his own fault. Salomon Kalou, recently signed from Feyenord for around 5 million pounds plus future fees, is Ivorian by birth, but has spent the last year attempting to gain Dutch citizenship. Marco Van Basten had virtually guaranteed Kalou a place in his World Cup squad, basically because Kalou has been lighting up the domestic league and can play on the right, where Van Basten has a gap to fill. His application for 'accelerated naturalisation' was denied by Dutch immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, not only because he failed the necessary language and culture tests, but because she suspected Kalouo only wanted EU citizenship to further his European club career.

She may have been right. After several appeals were turned down, Kalou has opted to play for the Ivory Coast (captained by his elder brother, Paris St Germain's Bonaventure Kalou) rather than wait to become a Dutch citizen through the usual period of residency. And with Kalou jumping ship to Chelsea, it seems he's turned his back on the Netherlands for good.

The downside to his immigration wrangle is that Kalou is still to make his international debut, and as an uncapped player he could easily fail the fairly strict British work permit criteria. Seems Chelsea plan to plead special circumstances after Kalou's legal wrangle, and could make an equally convincing case based on his talent, but I can't help thinking that should his permit be refused then he'll get what he deserves for trying to subvert the system, and spend a year or more in the less than glamorous Belgian league (where all failed work permit players get sent) while he waits to become an EU citizen.