Pompey fail in Hyland bid
Caribbean star refused work permit
Last updated: 1st September 2008
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_4082193,00.htmlSkysports.com understands Portsmouth target Khaleem Hyland has been refused a work permit.
Pompey have been chasing the Trinidad & Tobago star for most of the summer, well aware that this situation could arise.
The 19-year-old is highly rated in his homeland and seemed set to secure a move to Fratton Park last year, before a similar problem scuppered his plans.
He is a free agent after rejecting a new contract with San Juan Jabloteh, but remains without a club as new campaigns get underway across the world.
He did not make his full international debut until January of this year, but has been a regular since then.
He featured in a summer friendly defeat against England, while he scored his first goal for his country against Jamaica in June.
The midfielder had been desperate to fulfil his dream of securing a move to Europe, but the saga looks set to end in disappointment for both Hyland and Pompey boss Harry Redknapp.
Hyland work permit refused.Pompey have been tracking Trinidadian midfielder Khaleem Hyland for well over a year now, but this move again appears doomed to fail...
Sky sports is reporting - as we had expected to be honest - that he has again been refused a work permit so his move to Fratton has yet again fallen through, as it did last summer when he and a couple of other Trinidadian stars were offered contracts after successful trials.
Other clubs have signed players then agreed deals to loan them out to 'feeder clubs' in the past until the can claim themselves a European passport, and it had been suggested that we could have done this and sent him to Zulte in Belgium, although this looks unlikely and the free agent will now most likely end up somewhere else...
This is of course disappointing news, but to be honest do we really think that he would have made an impression on the 1st team in the near future? It is also news that I think we had been expecting in all honest hadn't we?
So, with around six and a half hours of the transfer window left we remain left on the edge of our seats wondering 'if', as unlikely as it might seem at the moment, we could pull off one last deal, but mostly wondering 'if' we will lose any more key players...