When they allowed Danny Drinkwater to join Chelsea as the blinds closed on the transfer window, Leicester City thought they were getting the best of the deal. The 27-year-old England international realised a £35m fee and they only spent £22m on his replacement, Sporting Lisbon’s Adrien Silva, 28.
However, the Daily Mail reports that the paperwork was received at FIFA HQ 14 seconds after the window closed and the Euro2016 winner is left twiddling his thumbs until January 2018 when the transfer can be registered.
The Premier League club are stoical in public, claiming to be “working with Adrien and Sporting Clube de Portugal to overcome some issues” on the transfer but are privately fuming at what they interpret as FIFA’s intransigence over the matter.
While Leicester exhaust the appeals process, Silva is bitterly disappointed and considering taking the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in order to kickstart his Premier League career.
FIFA declared that some of the paperwork wasn’t completed satisfactorily and in the wake of the corruption in the Blatter era, scrutinises every piece of paper far more closely than ever before. With the Premier League accepting the paperwork, it begs the question of whether their paperwork checking is up to scratch or if FIFA are over-zealous in their demands.
