Far, too far, from recognizing errors in management, or even from making a minimum of self-criticism in the administration of time, the president of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, took advantage of the Olmo case to fight back. An exercise in (re)victimizing Barça And, incidentally, he took advantage of the first question from the club’s official channel to stir up the opposition. “They will have to work much harder if they want to destabilize a club with more than 100 years of history,” Laporta warned, in a speech full of sentimentality, in which he clung to his verbiage, not exempt from contradictions. He spoke of the construction of an “apocalyptic story” against the club, as well as an attempted “attack on the shield” devised by “different actors.” More populist and vindictive than calm and conciliatory, he even emulated Diego Maradona: “The shield is not stained.”
He Olmo case It did not begin on December 31, when Barcelona’s deadline to regularize its financial situation against LaLiga expired. He Olmo case It began on August 9, when Barça could not register the entire contract on the day of his signing, as it had promised to the player. A situation that worsened two weeks later, after a provisional registration for Olmo was improvised, after taking advantage of Christensen’s long-term injury. It also did not end on January 8, when the CSD granted the precautionary measure so that the players Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor could return to be registered by LaLiga. The Council has three months to make the final decision. That is, the footballers’ licenses remain up in the air until April. Laporta, however, does not find even an iota of error in the administration of the registration, on the contrary. “It has been managed well, as it should have been managed: capacity for resistance, never giving up, contributing talent, courage, cunning as well and loving Barça. We can be satisfied with our good work,” he stressed.
Laporta’s reflection was, to say the least, curious. After the contract with Nike did not work, nor did the two precautionary measures presented, the first being denied by a commercial court and the second by the court of first instance, on December 27 and 30, respectively. It was then when Barcelona resorted to marketing the VIP seats at the new Camp Nou and presented the documentation. in the extremes in LaLiga. It turned out that the employer needed more documentation to certify the sale of a new asset and thus return to the 1×1 rule to achieve player registration. Information that, given the urgency and improvisation, arrived late. As a consequence, “They have the right to ask for additional documentation, although I am one of those who believe that they have acted against their actions because in similar cases they did not ask for it. The tension has been superlative. They were formal requirements that we were completing. On December 31, it was presented in a timely manner. Only a part had to be accredited for it to affect the fair playwhich they did not do in other procedures. “They demanded a 40 percent deposit,” Laporta explained.
Without the approval of LaLiga, Barcelona appealed to the Federation, on the 31st, to obtain new licenses. “We also delivered the documentation to the RFEF that told us that we were missing the 1-1. But both LaLiga and the RFEF told us that the rule was obsolete. On January 3 we just completed the documentation that LaLiga requested of us to validate the fair play”Laporta relieved. However, although Barcelona had already regularized the economic situation, LaLiga and the Federation joined together to deny the new licenses for Olmo and Víctor, after “literally” analyzing the regulations and, therefore, not being able to register a player twice in one season after his licenses had expired. To which Laporta responded: “Barça has always complied with the regulations. We are in a rule of law. And the CSD, to give a very precautionary measure, assesses that there is damage that is difficult to repair. And so the CSD and the state attorney appreciated the extremely precautionary measure.” Not satisfied with that explanation, he went one step further: “Any campaign against the club will not prevent Barça from being loved and admired by millions and millions of people around the world. We have emerged from these weeks strengthened, with renewed energy. They will not destabilize us at a crucial moment in history and with a team that will bring a lot of joy to Barcelona fans and that already makes them dream. I have normalized criticism and suffering actions that surpass all deontological codes. I am used to suffering these situations, but I do not accept that the supervision of my position is accompanied by lies. I cannot allow them to take advantage of criticism of the president to attack the club or destabilize the team. “I won’t accept it.”
