How West Brom secured Salomón Rondón thanks to Vladimir Putin’s protectionism

[Jonathan Wilson]

Tony Pulis has secured a promising Venezuelan forward who became available through a new Russian government law limiting foreign player numbersSalomón Rondón’s move from Zenit St Petersburg to West Bromwich Albion began with a phone call from Tony Pulis to André Villas-Boas asking him if there was any talent in Russia he should be looking at. The Zenit manager replied that because of new restrictions on foreign players – a direct diktat, it is said, from Vladimir Putin, concerned by the national side’s poor performances in qualifying for Euro 2016 – he was having to offload Rondón. The 25-year-old Venezuelan, he believed, would thrive in the Premier League.
There are a number of oddities about that paragraph, starting with the fact that Pulis and Villas-Boas, whose styles of football are apparently so different, should be, if not necessarily friends, then at least close enough to ring each other for advice on signings.
Related: West Bromwich Albion sign Venezuela striker Salomón Rondón for £12m
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