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Over the course of the last decade, there has been an influx of South Americans playing in the Premier League. From Hernan Crespo of Chelsea to Nolberto Solano of Newcastle United, South Americans’ presence has been most welcome.
Those two players, in particular, were bought from Inter and Aston Villa - not from their native Argentinian and Peruvian teams.
So it begs the question of why Premier League teams, especially given how cash-rich they are, go straight to the source of the talent in South America and cut out the middleman, who are usually other European clubs.
#3 Work Permit
One major problem is first getting them into the country on a visa from overseas. If the player is from a non-EU country, such as the whole of South America, they have to pass the criteria set out by the Football Association to be allowed into the country to work.
This is split into two parts: Part A and Part B, followed by the Objective Criteria and Outcome.
The player can gain a work permit if they score four or more points in Part A. Some of the criteria in this part are things such as the transfer fee being higher than 25% of other transfers in the Premier League for that year.
Another will be their wages hitting the same criteria. These points are worth three each, and so a high profile player, such as Robinho, would have passed with ease.
You can also score points for playing in a ‘Top League’, which is one of the five European leagues, and if you play over 75% of competitive games for a country ranked in the top 60 by the FIFA Aggregated World Rankings.
It sounds complicated, but it is just about going down the criteria and tallying up the points. If you fail Part A, there is a chance for Part B, which is slightly easier to garner points - but for this, you need five points or more instead of the four. You are allowed to carry over your points from Part A into Part B.
The Objective Criteria is outlining the recommendations you have received from influential figures in football. For example, your National Team coach or former manager/mentor.
And then comes the Outcome, which is where a panel of four sit down and either grant the Governing Body Endorsement for you to play in England or reject it. The whole process costs around £10,000 per-player.
A club will normally do their own math to determine whether they have a chance of securing a work permit for their player, and if they think they do not, they will not then waste their time going through the official process. Normally, they will only go down that road if they have a true reason to believe their player will be granted one.
#2 Too rich for their own good
The specific criteria a player has to hit might put teams off, but that is not the only reason why they do not delve deep into the South American market.
The Premier League teams are also too rich for their own good; they would rather see that player, who comes from Corinthians, compete in another European league for two years and then pay the inflated price, knowing that they can handle European football.
Clubs in England also do not know how the players will react to English football straight away. It is a huge difference to how South American football is played, and hence they were willing to let the players try out European football first.
The likes of Anderson, Erik Lamela and many more might not have been bought by English teams if they had not been seen at Porto and AS Roma.
It might be a reductive judge of character, especially given Anderson’s spell at Porto only lasted one year, but it is used as their litmus test to see whether they could handle the division.
#1 Cut-throat Premier League
The other problem English clubs find is that the Premier League is a division that is on a tightrope.
It is fine for the top six to operate in this free-spending way, given they have no real possibility of being relegated, but for the other 14 teams, there is always a chance of one big mistake and they are in a scrap to stay up.
Everton are a prime example of this. They brought in nine new players over the summer and are currently in 15th place. The Toffees are suffering because of poor recruitment.
Gino Pozzo, the owner of Watford, has been a pioneer of South American football for decades.
His strategy of buying straight from the source and then loaning them out to other European clubs, including Udinese in Italy, to build up their experience and confidence has been adopted by the City Football Group, who own Manchester City.
Last summer, the Citizens bought a relatively unknown player called Douglas Luiz for €12m from Brazilian side Vasco da Gama. The central midfielder has been shipped straight to Girona FC, who are now owned by City Football Group and Pep Guardiola’s brother and prolific agent, Pere Guardiola, to gain crucial experience of European football.
This move will be increasingly common for Premier League teams as they see the future success it has. Obviously, not every club can match City’s wealth in doing this, but for the cash-rich teams, it will be a strategy they soon follow.
As we have seen with Juan Foyth, formerly of Estudiantes, and Gabriel Jesus, formerly of Palmeiras, English clubs are opening their eyes to the vast wealth of talent in South America and importing the players directly, cutting out the middleman.
Over the course of the next decade, the trend of allowing these players to go to other European teams first will slowly decrease. English clubs now have incredible resources to scout in South America and will use that to their advantage. The precedent of Jesus’ impeccable start to life in Manchester will only add to this.
