Anderson de Silva – Everton’s bureaucratic nightmare

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George Roberts tries to make sense of Anderson de Silva, who made just one Premier League appearance for Everton…

Unusually for a Brazilian, the defensive midfielder Anderson de Silva started out his career overseas in Uruguay with Nacional, but came to Everton’s attention while playing for Racing Santander in Spain.

The saga of Anderson’s transfer to Everton in the summer of 2005 attracted far more column inches than his brief playing career at Goodison. Despite entering into an agreement with Racing, Everton found that the move was complicated by the fact that Nacional still held Anderson’s “commercial and federative rights.” The move was further complicated when it was found that Anderson did not possess an EU passport and, with no international track record, there was no chance of him receiving a work permit to play in England. Continue reading