International defenders Sami Gebrehiwet, 21, and Ambes Sium, 24, have been given FFA permission to join Gold Coast and will not be counted in United's foreign quota due to their circumstances.

The duo - who attracted interest from Adelaide United - will join the Glitter Strip club as soon as their commitments with their South Australian club Western Strikers are finished.

But United already had 23 players on their books, the maximum allowed by A-League regulations, after the signings of Croatian defender Ante Rozic and journeyman striker Dylan Macallister.

That means that two of the club's players under the age of 21 have had their professional deals torn up and are now back on youth contracts in order to make way for the Eritreans - but exactly who they are remains a mystery.

A-League clubs are given space in the cap to pay up to three National Youth League players a salary of around $40,000, but coach Miron Bleiberg refused to name exactly which players have been placed on these deals.

Instead, he said that given Gebrehiwet and Sium were not in his immediate first-team plans and will take time to adjust to their new surroundings, the players were not upset with the use of the bureaucratic loophole.

"They are fine with it, otherwise we wouldn't have done it and they will get their reward for it," he said.

"We chose players who are going to be here in the long-term so that it doesn't affect their position in the team.

"They'll continue to train with the team, it's just a matter of paperwork. They won't be hard done by financially - on the contrary, they benefit from the length of the contract.

"This year will be youth for them and the next two years will be senior.

"We'll have the same team and the same personnel. We have to do some shuffling of paperwork but it's all good. It's a win-win for everybody."

Gold Coast United now have a total of nine non-Australian players on their books - the highest number in A-League history - but shrewd recruiting means that only five will be counted as official visa players.

As well as the side's new Eritrean duo and Kiwi shotstopper Glen Moss, defender Ante Rozic is a Croatian national but holds an Australian passport, allowing him to be registered as a local player.

United can thank the quick thinking of billionaire owner Clive Palmer for being able to bring in Gebrehiwet and Sium.

It was Palmer's 'brilliance', according to Bleiberg, that paved the way for their recruitment.

"According to him, if they were granted by the Australian Government all the rights of citizens of Australia, they can't restrict them on the basis of having another country, because they don't," Bleiberg said.

"From my understanding, Adelaide were interested in one of them but I don't think they had Clive's idea that they could be classified as Australian players."