Gabriel
Paulista granted work permit ahead of £11.3m Arsenal move
• Brazilian undergoing medical on Monday
• Defender qualifies for permit under ‘exceptional talent’ rule
• Transfer window – live
• Defender qualifies for permit under ‘exceptional talent’ rule
• Transfer window – live
Gabriel Paulista is undergoing a medical at Arsenal on Monday to enable
the completion of an £11.3m move from Villarreal. Photograph: Manuel Queimadelos
Alonso/Getty Images
Monday 26
January 2015 15.19 GMT
Arsenal are to complete the signing of Gabriel Paulista from Villarreal,
subject to the player passing a medical, for around £11.3m after the Brazilian
was granted a work permit under the Football Association’s “exceptional
talent” guidelines.
Gabriel was undergoing medical tests at the club’s London Colney
training complex on Monday afternoon with Arsenal hopeful the centre-half will
be available for Sunday’s visit of Aston Villa to the Emirates Stadium. The
24-year-old has not been capped by Brazil at any level, meaning he did not
qualify for a work permit to play in this country, but Arsenal successfully appealed on his behalf, arguing he was of sufficiently
high calibre and would “contribute significantly to the development of the
game” in England.
The Home Office appeals process is administered by the Football
Association, with the panel of football experts convened to judge the case duly
convinced that Gabriel should be permitted to play in the Premier League. Those
rules are expected to be tightened over the summer with the appeals option
scrapped, but it is proposed an exemption threshold will be set at around £10m
over which players from outside the EU would still qualify for a move. The deal
for Gabriel should eventually rise to £11.3m, meaning he would have been
granted clearance even under the proposed new rules.
While the Brazilian will join the Polish teenager Krystian Bielik in
securing a move to the north London club, there remain doubts over the teenage
forward Chuba Akpom’s long-term future. The 19-year-old made his fourth
first-team appearance of the season in Sunday’s
3-2 FA Cup fourth round win at Brighton & Hove Albion and, having entered the final six months of his contract, has been
offered a new three-year deal at the club. However, a trio of foreign clubs –
Twente, Borussia Dortmund and Feyenoord – are all considering making
pre-contract offers and could lure him away for nothing in the summer.
That has
left Akpom considering his options. Olivier Giroud, Danny Welbeck, Alexis
Sanchez and, arguably, Yaya Sanogo – who has been loaned out to Crystal Palace
– are all ahead of him in the pecking order at the club through whose academy
he has graduated. The teenager, who joined Arsenal when he was six, is seeking
greater senior involvement and may even wait to consider what offers
materialise from English clubs, who would have to pay Arsenal a compensation
fee, in the summer.
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