Geoff Cameron won’t appear for Stoke City today

An amazing week for Geoff Cameron has turned south just a tad. As his new club, Stoke City, opens Premiership play today, Cameron remains sidelined due to red tape.

It’s particularly disappointing after the former Houston Dynamo man cleared the major bureaucratic hurdle a week ago, the collection of his UK work permit, which was never a slam dunk.

Reports out of Stoke now say that Cameron, who did so well in Wednesday’s historic U.S. win over Mexico, stopped over in the United States rather than report directly back to England. This from the news site This Is Staffordshire:

It is understood that Cameron has been told to fly to Boston for bio-metric tests to substantiate proof of his identity for the completion of his visa application.”

And I won’t even pretend to know what that means. It sounds very Jason Bourne to me, but what do I know? (Aside: when is the correct time to update that reference to Aaron Cross? Anyone?)

So let’s allow manager Tony Pulis to explain, and to enlighten us on Cameron’s status within the team. What he said on the same site:

It’s just red tape as far as I can see. But it’s deeply disappointing that we don’t have him to choose from.

“He has impressed me in his short time here, both as a person and a player, and I think he did well in his first appearance for us in Germany last week.

“I also understand he did well for America in Mexico, but now he won’t be back in time for Saturday’s game. In fact, we’re not expecting him back here until next Wednesday now.”