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Often the world isn't a very friendly place for immigrants, even when the immigrant in question is a highly regarded blossoming talent employed by one of the biggest football clubs in the country. Such is the case for 19-year-old Brazilian midfielder Allan Rodrigues de Souza, who will face another year on loan in hopes of becoming eligible for a British work permit in the future.
Allan has already completed loan spells this season with Finnish champions SJK and Sint-Truidense in Belgium.
In order to automatically qualify for a work permit, Allan would have needed to play in at least 30% of Brazil's national team matches over the past 12 months. It goes without saying that breaking into Brazil's national team is a difficult hill to climb, even for well-established talents like Roberto Firmino and Philippe Coutinho.
However, minutes played in the national team is not the only way to qualify for a permit, as an appeals panel can look into other factors such as minutes played in a "Top league," wages, transfer fee, and coin-flip (probably).
Speaking on the matter back in March, Jürgen Klopp had the following to say:
When I came here, one or two months later Allan was here and I said ‘who is this?'. ‘He is a player for us and the week before he became a champion in Finland.' ‘Interesting - why didn't he play here?' ‘Because it's not possible.' And then I started learning about the FA rules and things like this.
I saw him in training and I thought ‘oh my God, what can we do to keep this boy here and bring him into the line-up?' He's 19 years old, an outstanding talent, a good player with a good attitude, everybody loves him, he's a nice lad - so that's really, really good. He's a smart player.
There is no chance in this moment here because he can't get the permission to play here, so we have to send him out on loan.
Klopp appears very keen to bring the youngster into the fold. But with the rules as they currently exist it seems all but certain that Allan won't be playing at Anfield until at least the 2017/18 season.