Head coach Vitor Matos says he does not know whether his backroom team from former club Maritimo will be granted permission to join him at Swansea City.
Matos wants fellow Portuguese Diogo Medeiros, his former Maritimo number two, coach Toze Mendes and analyst and coach Goncalo Ricca on his staff at Swansea.
But 10 days after Matos was appointed successor to Alan Sheehan, the Welsh club are still waiting for news on whether the trio will be cleared to work in Wales.
“It’s something that is not in the control of the club,” Matos said.
“It’s a legal process that came with Brexit, so that’s the problem.”
The United Kindgom left the European Union in 2020, ending the automatic right for European Union citizens to live and work in the UK.
Matos, who spent five years on Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool coaching staff after joining in 2019, added: “I was here [working] a long time before so I was completely fine. The staff [were] not, so they need to go through all the process and this process takes time.”
Swansea require clearance from the Home Office and the Football Association before they can appoint Medeiros, Mendes and Ricca.
Matos acknowledged that while he remains hopeful that his former colleagues will eventually join him in the Swansea dugout, the club “don’t know” for sure if that will happen.
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“We did everything they (the relevant authorities) asked us for and that’s how it is,” Matos added.
“Now it needs to be the panel to make a decision and we wait for that.”
Matos has so far been working alongside long-serving coach Kristian O’Leary and head of goalkeeping Martyn Margetson at Swansea, with club legends Leon Britton and Joe Allen also joining his staff on a short-term basis.
When asked whether working without his familiar backroom team was making his job harder, Matos said: “I would not say harder, but different. I think different is a right word because my coaching staff knows the way I want to play, knows the way I build that way of playing, and that’s different if they are not here.
“Joey and Leon have been absolutely brilliant trying to understand what I want and at the same time giving me the background of the team, of the club and of the players.
“I’m really happy to have them with me, they are legends of the club and I respect that a lot. So the right answer is different of course.”
Swansea have lost their two games under Matos, at home to Derby County and at West Bromwich Albion last weekend.
They are only outside the Championship relegation zone on goal difference having suffered five straight league defeats in total, with the pressure on to halt the slide when they host 20th-placed Oxford United on Saturday.
