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Newcastle United want to sign Marlon Santos.

He's an under-20 international but will need to have a work permit approved to sign for United - and that's a complicated process. United already applied and received a permit for Yoshinori Muto.

It’s not something that Newcastle have had to worry about too much before this summer. The last time they signed a player who hailed from outside the EU it was DeAndre Yedlin, who already had a work permit that was applied for in 2014 (and approved after an appeal).

(Image: Getty Images AsiaPac)

Although Mo Diame represents Senegal he also has a French passport so was free to play for Newcastle under the European Union rules – while Fabian Schar qualifies because Switzerland has an agreement with EU countries for freedom of movement.

For Muto – and for any deal for Nandez – Newcastle would need to apply for Governing Body Endorsement, which is effectively the Premier League’s approval for an overseas player outside of the EU to join their club. This is part of an agreement with the Home Office, who operate a points based system to determine whether a player should be granted a work permit.

Two of their other signings this summer – Ki sung-Yueng and Kenedy – both already have the work permit Newcastle will be looking for with Muto. Ki’s based on his international record while Kenedy’s is a discretionary work permit based on his wages and the transfer fee Chelsea paid for him (taken as proof of his value in the absence of regular international football).

The rules are there to ensure that any player coming into the Premier League will add value to the league. It effectively prevents players who aren’t internationals and were born outside the EU from getting a work permit – although there are rules to get around that.

What are the rules?

It’s quite complicated. The Premier League have two tiers of endorsement: guaranteed and discretionary.

Guaranteed is there to make it easy for high calibre players from overseas to get quick work permits and it is based on players playing a set number of games for their country. If a country is in the top ten of the FIFA rankings, a player will only have to have played 30% of all matches in the previous two years to get a permit.

It’s 45% if they are between 11 and 20 right down to 75% if a country is between 31-50 in the FIFA rankings. There is no provision for rankings under 50 and Brazil are currently 2nd in the FIFA rankings so any senior international who had played 30% of games will get a permit.

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But Santos hasn't played for Brazil's full senior side yet, so the matter is complicated. He does not qualify for automatic endorsement but they can still apply for discretionary endorsement, which is the rule that they managed to use to get Yoshinori Muto's work permit.

What does this mean for Santos?

Newcastle have already tried to get a work permit for Santos and it's far from clear. They have found it difficult so far.

The Premier League rules state: “If a player does not meet the automatic criteria set out, an applicant club can request that an Exceptions Panel consider the player’s experience and value in order to determine whether a Governing Body Endorsement should nevertheless be granted.”

This in effect is a three-man panel that consider the player’s experience and value. They will take into account the quality of the league they are transferring from – La Liga is one of the designated ‘top leagues’ by the Premier League so that is a big tick – and the value of the player (both in terms of transfer fee paid and also the wages paid to him).

In order to get Premier League backing the club would also need to prove that they rate him highly enough to bring him into the country to take a spot that could be reserved for homegrown or EU-based players. This may be complicated because Santos would not be first choice.

There are other things taken into account.

The Premier League designates an average fee and average wage across the entire division and will usually grant an endorsement if the player’s fee and wages are above that because they demonstrate the financial commitment a club has made to the player. With Muto a £9million buy for Newcastle and likely to be on a salary above the average across the top flight, they should have enough evidence to guarantee him a work permit.

It costs £500 for every application – and £5,000 for every panel, which has to be convened by the Premier League.

Have Newcastle left it too late?

They are running right up against the deadline. They could sign him pending a permit and then have the panel convene, but that may make it unlikely he's available for the Spurs match on Saturday.

The upshot of all of this is leaving business this late is not advisable.