Town will learn today whether Canadian international winger Jaime Peters will be able to take his place in the squad this season. Issues regarding the 18-year-old's work permit have so far meant the highly-rated youngster has been unable to join up with the club he committed to back in January.
After signing a pre-contract agreement with the Blues, the much-fancied Peters applied to work in the UK via a Commonwealth Working Holiday Visa (WHV).
However, with immigration set to be an issue in the May General Election, the rules on WHVs were tightened. From February 8th they were amended so holders are only entitled to work for one of their two years in the UK and are specifically banned from employment in professional sport.
This left Peters's application in a grey area, the player having applied in January for a visa which would not come into effect until his 18th birthday on May 4th, after the rule changes. The club spent some time lobbying the Home Office, however, this ultimately ended in failure and the Blues had to seek another route.
Peters has not played the required 75% of international games with Canada over the last two years and failed to automatically win a permit on the Highly Skilled Migrant programme. However, as with Middlesbrough's Yakubu recently, Town appealed to an expert football tribunal, which took place in Sheffield yesterday and attended by boss Joe Royle.
The club, backed by the Canadian Soccer Association and their head coach Frank Yallop, are understood to be hopeful that they have been successful and will learn the outcome today.
TWTD first learnt that there could be problems with Peters's work permit back in April. We requested a comment from Town and were asked not to run the story as the club was concerned that any publicity might jeopardise the chances of Peters joining the club.
Keen that the Blues shouldn't miss out on a highly rated player, we took the highly unusual step of agreeing. We understand that after a number of posts on the TWTD Message Board suggested a work permit problem was behind the delay in Peters signing, the local papers were alerted to the story, approached the club and were similarly asked to keep quiet until the deal was done and dusted.
The Ontario-born player is currently in Canada and will quickly join up with the squad if he has been successful in gaining his work permit and could be involved in next Tuesday's pre-season friendly with Colchester United.