The soap opera continues in Barcelona, with exchanges of communications between the Blaugrana and LaLiga. The culé club issued a brief text shortly after 8:15 p.m., in which it reported the request to the Spanish Football Federation for “a new license for Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor.” Furthermore, in just four lines and without citing LaLiga, he added: “The club wants to deny that it has requested or received any moratorium from any other body for the registration requested.” They were thus responding to information reported by Catalunya Ràdio and the EFE agency minutes before. nor a possible endorsement by any member of the Board of Directors. When asked by this newspaper, Barça referred to its statement. “A new license is not renewing the previous one, but rather a new one,” they conceded, without giving further explanations. There will be no further information from Barcelona, they assured. LaLiga, for its part, responded an hour later with another equally short but forceful statement: “LaLiga informs that, as of today, December 31, FC Barcelona has not presented any alternative that, in compliance with the LaLiga’s economic control regulations allow you to register no players starting next January 2.”
The Barça club has been accustomed to walking on a wire for years, and emerging, apparently, unscathed. This time apparently, he has not succeeded. The only two signings this summer, one of them, Olmo, who arrived for around 60 million euros, could now fall into the void by failing to register before the end of December 31. After failing through judicial means to obtain the precautionary measure that they did obtain in the past with Gavi, they also apparently did not achieve the extraordinary income necessary for their chips and regularize their fair play financial before the limit, taking into account the LaLiga statement. Therefore, as of this Wednesday, January 1, Dani Olmo could already be a free agent, while Pau Víctor would continue at Barcelona, but without a record. Unless the RFEF said otherwise and accepted this new movement of a “new token”.
The surreal situation and apparent defeat in Barcelona has come after a long day of work in the offices. This weekend Joan Laporta already worked from Dubai to close the agreement with two investors, and returned to Barcelona to continue with it. Until this Tuesday, the relevant documentation of the agreement has been sent, with a League reviewing the writings with a magnifying glass to have the guarantee that these income would arrive and avoid situations such as the failure of Barça Vision, with recurring non-payments that leave a shadow that haunts to the fair play. But why couldn’t he register if in a few days Barcelona gets this income, even if it has exceeded the limit? This is clarified by point five of article 141 of the General Regulations of the Royal Spanish Federation: “Football players whose license is cancelled, will not be able, in the course of the same season, to obtain a license in the same team of the club to which they have already been. linked.”
A very serious problem, which at the moment has not been solved within hours of exceeding the limit – 11:59 p.m. on the 31st – and which, furthermore, has been known since August, taking advantage of Andreas Christensen’s long-term injury gap, but that it would only be there for half a season until the end of the year. “We have not reached the 1:1 formula because we did not want to,” announced president Joan Laporta in September, ensuring that Olmo was left without playing the first two games because it was not necessary, since “there were other solutions” and the club I didn’t want to force the Nike contract. Agreement in which they trusted to regularize their situation and which, despite being, as it has been cataloged in countless situations, “the best sports equipment contract in the history of the world of football”, did not serve to reach the 1:1 as they trusted. “We don’t have to suffer because of the registrations of Pau Víctor and Dani Olmo,” Laporta also assured in October. And not only has it been suffered, but apparently they will not materialize for the moment.
𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐅𝐂 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐚
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es)
The first and second rounds to obtain registration were disputed through judicial means, and ended in failure for Barcelona. First, before the Commercial Court number 10 last Friday the 27th, and then before the Court of First Instance number 47 this same Monday. Both judges rejected the precautionary measure requested by Barcelona for its players until June 30, 2025. The Barça club initiated the lawsuit to invalidate the Financial Fair Play regulations with the argument that the Delegated Commission was not competent to establish the Financial Fair Play Regulations. Budget Preparation (NEP), and that the General Assembly of LaLiga should be in charge. But the judge knocked down the fragile argument after hours of waiting for the sentence. From LaLiga they defended “the full competence of the Delegated Commission.” “In the more than 12 years that the NEPs have been in force, said competition has never been questioned by any club, not even by FC Barcelona, who has also participated in the development of said rules,” said the organization chaired by Javier Tebas in a statement. Furthermore, the club argued that the interpretation of article 77 that allows 80% of the salary of a long-term injured player to be used had changed. At first they were assured that with that margin they could regularize the situation of the squad, that is, register players like Dani Olmo, . But now, LaLiga has denied it, alleging that only one player can occupy the German goalkeeper’s record, and that the same criterion of the regulations has been used as against the rest of the clubs.
In recent months, Dani Olmo’s performance has dropped. He went from being one of the most effective players, scoring three goals in his first three games, to scoring another three in 12 games. Olmo took advantage of the Christmas break to travel to the United States and clear up the situation, but when he returned, he was not yet registered. In fact, this Tuesday, first thing in the morning, he trained with the group due to the confusion and concern about whether, after the grapes, he could continue registered as a Barça player. With a sigh until 2024 ends, LaLiga has not validated Barcelona’s leverage, which this time, for the moment, cannot celebrate surviving the present by mortgaging the future, and is facing uncertainty.
