Perth Glory coach Dave Mitchell says the club is becoming increasingly frustrated with their inability to gain provisional clearances for recruits Josh Mitchell and Michael Baird to play.
Striker Baird and defender Mitchell both missed the first round of the new Hyundai A-League season after they were not granted international transfer clearances by former club, Romania’s Universitatea Craiova.
Both players, along with Central Coast’s Joshua Rose were not paid for a substantial period by Craiova last season, forcing the three Australians to consider returning home.
However, Craiova has maintained they are contracted to the club and denied the trio clearances to play for their respective teams in Australia.
There was some hope for the Glory earlier in the week when Rose was granted a provisional clearance by FIFA to play in this week’s clash with Adelaide United.
But Mitchell and Baird have been unable to get their paperwork through and did not fly to Melbourne on Friday morning for Saturday’s clash with the Victory.
“It’s annoying to see Central Coast get their player through and we haven’t been able to get ours through,” coach Mitchell said from Perth airport, before flying to Victoria.
“It’s no blight on the club,” he added. “I think there’s been a hitch. I think the person who’s doing the case work is actually on holiday I believe. It’s unbelievable if that’s the case.”
“There was three different cases (for each player) and they all had different case workers and apparently ours was lodged earlier than everyone else’s and it’s still delayed, so that’s a puzzler.”
“(But) the club’s done everything they possibly can this week to try and get in touch with FIFA. We’ve had staff stay behind hours and make calls and it’s just unfortunate that it’s not come through.”
In an interesting twist, Dave Mitchell actually had a missed call from Baird that came through during the press conference on Friday morning.
When Mitchell attempted to call him back he could not get through to the striker but the coach said that if any word came through from FIFA on Friday, then whoever was cleared to play would be flown to Melbourne to join the squad as both players were officially named in the team on Thursday pending clearances.
If Baird and Mitchell do not get their clearances in time, the Glory will field a virtually unchanged line-up from last week’s 3-3 draw with North Queensland for the first road trip of the season and their first match at Melbourne’s new AAMI Park.
Perth have never beaten Melbourne in Victoria but the coach warned Melbourne’s defence to expect a better performance from star signing Robbie Fowler this week after the Liverpool legend was somewhat subdued in his first Glory game.
“The way we’ve set up this week, Robbie’s looked fantastic and I think he’ll cause them a lot of problems,” Mitchell said.
“I think Melbourne when they played last week, I think they were unluckily down 2-0 against Sydney,” he said referring to the match, which eventually finished 3-3.
“They played some good football and they look like they’re a very good side again as we always thought they would be.”
“So it’s a new stadium, I think there will be a packed house and one where our boys will have to rise to the occasion and look forward to the game.”
