Perth Glory pulled off one of the greatest A-League signings last week in the form of Daniel Sturridge and now they face the tough task of getting him to Western Australia.
The former Premier League star is currently based in Spain with COVID-19 restrictions set to make his trip Down Under quite challenging.
Western Australia in particular has made entering its borders very difficult across the past 18 months and Glory owner Tony Sage revealed the club's early plans to try and get Sturridge to Perth soon.
"Our last player stayed and did his quarantine in Adelaide to get to Perth so it’s really up to us working with the authorities," Sage said on FNR's The State Of Our Football Nation.
"We hope and pray we can have him in the next seven days arrive in Australia. We haven’t got a location yet. It may be Darwin, it may be Adelaide, it may be Perth.
"We hope to have him on the pitch training in the last week of October if all goes well because he does have to serve a 14-day quarantine."
Still just 32, Sturridge has had a tough few years with injuries and hasn't played professionally since early 2020 when he departed Turkish club Trabzonspor.
Glory have done their due diligence however and are adamant he'll arrive at the club in good condition and ready to play.
"He's fighting fit. We obviously don't sign anyone without a medical. He passed the medical in flying colours," Sage said.
"He's been training with a club in Spain, they're very disappointed that he didn't sign with them. Very disappointed, but they are still allowing him to train there. He's made some good friends there.
"So he's flat out training. We're going to put out some shots of him training in the next couple of weeks before he leaves Spain.
"The only difficulty is once he gets to Australia, whichever location, he's got be in a hotel.
"What we did previously when our team came back from Doha when we were in the Champions League last year we had the hotel put exercise equipment - a treadmill, a bike - in the room. So we're hoping to facilitate that for him.
"He's already had many conversations with Richard Garcia about where he fits into the team, his positioning and up front we'll have him, Fornaroli, Keogh..."
Sage also said he's hopeful that Perth Glory's first home game against Adelaide United on November 20 will be shown on free-to-air television with the match currently scheduled to only be streamed on Paramount Plus.
Every A-League Men's and Women's game will be streamed on Paramount Plus next season with free trials available for new subscribers.