Barcelona have not given up hope that Dani Olmo will be able to play for them in the second half of the season despite missing the January 1 deadline to register him with La Liga.
A statement from La Liga on Tuesday night said Olmo and his team-mate Pau Victor have subsequently been deleted from the club’s registered squad with the league.
Barcelona — who remain optimistic that a resolution can be found — lost their second appeal for the precautionary registration of Olmo, 26, and Victor, 23, on Monday after their initial court appeal had failed three days earlier.
Footballers are given licences to play in La Liga that usually last until the end of their contracts. Olmo’s exceptional licence, granted to Barcelona by La Liga to register him and 23-year-old forward Victor at the end of August, only ran until December 31.
La Liga approved the registration of the pair for the first half of the season only, giving Barca a temporary permit to use the players while they kept looking for fresh revenue streams before January.
Barcelona announced a new sponsorship deal with Nike in November and have been exploring using money from the long-term sale of VIP boxes at the refurbished Camp Nou to meet financial fair play rules and extend the two player’s registrations.
They believe the VIP box sales will meet the demands of La Liga and that once all the relevant documents have been received by the league it will enable them to end this saga around Olmo and Victor.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Barcelona said they had asked the Spanish football federation (RFEF) to process an application for Olmo. But when asked by The Athletic about this, the RFEF said they cannot do anything without validation from La Liga.
A source at La Liga, who asked to remain anonymous as they did not want to comment publicly on the matter, suggested the players cannot be re-registered “through normal channels” and pointed to RFEF regulations which prevent a player being de-registered and then re-registered within the same season.
Barcelona’s financial situation has been impacted by the delay in the construction work at the Camp Nou, with the club continuing to play at Montjuic. The club had been hoping to return to their home stadium this calendar year, but this now may not happen until the 2025-26 season.
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Why did Barcelona need to re-register Olmo and Victor?
Barcelona’s struggles to meet La Liga’s salary limit had made it difficult for them to register new players in the summer but a resolution was found due to long-term injuries at the club.
If a club lose a player to injury for at least four months, La Liga rules allow them to allocate 80 per cent of that player’s salary in the club’s allowance to register another player.
Ronald Araujo suffered a hamstring injury with Uruguay at the Copa America that required surgery and kept him out for five months.
The same was also true for long-term absentees Andreas Christensen, and later Marc-Andre Ter Stegen — allowing the wages of those players to be freed up.
Araujo’s injury gave the space for fellow defender Inigo Martinez to be registered for the entirety of 2024-25, while the salary space created by Christensen’s injury allowed Olmo to be registered for the first half of the season.
Araujo returned to action this month and Christensen is targeting a January return, while Ter Stegen is out for the season with a knee ligament injury, with Barcelona signing Wojciech Szczesny to provide cover for Inaki Pena.
With similar registration issues in the past, Barcelona were able secure a personal bank guarantee from board members, which the club used to register Araujo, Marcos Alonso, Sergi Roberto, Inaki Pena and Gavi in 2023.
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What happens next?
The uncertainty around Olmo’s registration has opened the door to the possibility of the Spain international leaving the club for free during the January transfer window.
Sources close to Victor, speaking anonymously due to the confidentiality of the process, suggest the player will seek a loan exit in January should his Barcelona registration not be validated.
Barcelona are next in action against fourth-division side Barbastro in the Copa del Rey on January 4.
Olmo, who joined from RB Leipzig in the summer for a fee in the region of €60million (£50m; $63m), has scored six goals in 15 appearances for Barcelona this season while Victor has two goals in 17 appearances, of which only two have been as a starter.
(Ander Gillenea/AFP via Getty Images)
