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Afolabi Ezekiel - January 20, 2025
In August 2024, Barcelona agreed a deal to sign Dani Olmo from German side, RB Leipzig. The signing of the player involved a transfer fee of €60 million on a six-year contract which was officially announced on August 9. However, Barcelona’s financial difficulties soon became a major concern in securing the registration of their new signing.
The Financial Hurdles: A Complex Situation
Speaking of financial problems, Barcelona has lacked stability in recent season. They also violated the spending wage policy of La Liga that only allowed a certain number of players per club for the entire season. In this deal, the financial department had certain reservations. Nonetheless, the club managed to go ahead with the signing after meeting every condition that is required for such a transaction to take place regardless the fact that officials from the financial departments of the club had warned against such a move owing to the various risks that are associated with it. They warned that the club might face complications when trying to register Olmo due to their ongoing financial struggles.
The decision to press ahead with the transfer was made even more complicated by the club’s substantial debt and the limitations imposed by La Liga’s strict financial regulations. While Barcelona’s executives assured Olmo that the registration issue would be resolved in time for the new season, doubts began to creep in not long enough.
Unregistered Player and Frustration Sets In
Even though transaction was completed, Dani Olmo could not feature for Barcelona during the initial days of the La Liga season because he was not registered. The situation became frustrating for Olmo according to The Athletic. He was expecting to start on a new project when he went back to his childhood club but all he could do was sit back and watch as Barca dealt with their financial troubles.
To make things worse, coach Hansi Flick, announced in public that Olmo was not yet in a condition to fully perform during a match and that statement frustrated the player even more. Olmo, who had noted dissatisfactions with respect to Barcelona’s finances prior to the completion of the deal, was now in a position where he felt that his commitment to the club was being questioned.
As per The Athletic, during discussions with with the club, his agent voiced his concerns about the club’s financial problems. He recalled the case of Inigo Martinez, who had also been delayed in his registration due to similar financial issues at Barcelona in the previous summer. Olmo’s camp began to push for a contingency plan that would allow him to leave the club if his registration issues were not resolved by the January transfer window.
Contract Modifications and Temporary Registration
Since he might be registered only for the first part of the season, Olmo and his entourage demanded changes in his contract. In particular, they demanded a clause that would enable him to go free in case Barcelona did not register him in the second half of the season. Barcelona executives also agreed to the idea and added the clause in the contract. This would have given Olmo a back up plan had the registration problem not been fixed.
Progress was made on August 26 when a knee injury to Andreas Christensen presented Barcelona with the means to use LaLiga’s long-term injury relief list that would allow for the creation of Olmo’s salary slot. However, owing to the high wage structure problem Barcelona had at the time, the team was only able to register him for four months, thus playing for the team only until the first half of the season.
Impressive Start and Growing Tensions
As soon as Olmo was officially registered, he began to come into his own as a football player. Olmo featured in his first game against Rayo Vallecano on 28 August as a second-half substitute, scored the winning goal that sealed 2-1 victory. At the end of November, Olmo has netted 5 goals in as many La Liga matches and one further goal in 3 Champions League fixtures.
However, doubts over his registration limped on the forefront of his outstanding performances on the pitch. As for Olmo, who, with Pau Victor, another summer signing, was uncertain about his future at the club. Barcelona was getting poorer and the lack of a new sponsorship deal with Nike which had been named as a solution to the club’s salary cap problem, was proof of it.
Legal and Financial Maneuvering: A Race Against Time
In December, the financial crisis in Barcelona has become critical. For some reason, La Liga did not recognize the new agreement with Nike as a new commercial revenue stream for the club. The Spanish Football League, La Liga, decreed that Nike simply renewed an existing deal hence they cannot be used as a way of meeting the club’s imperative parameters for salary cap while recruiting new players.
Barcelona then had to look for other avenues to use to ensure that its objectives of establishing the city as a tourist destination were realized. One of the contingency measures was to sell the rights in V.I.P. seating at the refurbished Camp Nou. Barcelona officials had been trying to agree with a sponsor in the Middle East in the context of buying these rights to raise the needed amount that will enable La Liga registration.
Barça failed to secure the money to pay for Olmo and Victor to play the second part of the season by December 31, the registration deadline. The last effort performed by the club this time was to file a legal complaint to a commercial court citing that Olmo and Victor should have the right to practice their profession as footballers. However, this appeal was turned down which left Barcelona with limited time in which to try and sort out this problem.
The January Resolution: Temporary Relief
Before things came to a head, Barcelona got some succour when the CSD (Consejo Superior de Deportes, the Spanish Sports highest authority) sanctioned temporary registration for Olmo and Victor. This was made on 8th of January and enabled the players to attend matches now as they sought litigation.
Although both Olmo and Victor got a temporary reprieve, they knew that their status was still not settled and that La Liga had filed an appeal against the CSD decision. The appeal was made out of other clubs’ concerns in La Liga; which alleges that Barcelona indulged in unsafe practices which other clubs pursued.
Barcelona, however, was determined to press ahead, knowing that if the situation was resolved in the coming months, Olmo and Victor could feature in crucial upcoming matches, including the Supercopa final, key La Liga fixtures, and the knockout rounds of the Copa del Rey and Champions League.
Continued Uncertainty and Future Implications
Even though Olmo and Victor’s temporary registration unveiled by the CSD offers short-term solution, the registration saga is not yet over. The legal battle is expected to continue, with a final resolution expected in the coming months. For now, Olmo and Victor remain eligible to play, but the uncertainty over their long-term status at Barcelona looms large.
It has given observers food for thought regarding Barcelona’s fiscal policies and the-profit approach in context of players’ registrations. That remains only a temporary fix for the club’s financial and legal problems; the case of Olmo and Victor’s registrations will continue to reverberate in Barcelona in the years to come.
Meanwhile, the players and their families are stuck in limbo, and the rest of the football world watches the soap opera unfolding at Barcelona, with questions over the club’s financial stability and the ability to balance its books while simultaneously trying to attract more talented players. The Dani Olmo is far from over and all might be decided in the near future with consequences on Barcelona and football in general.
