Dani Olmo and Pau Victor will be allowed to play for Barcelona for the rest of the 2024-25 season after the Spanish government upheld the club’s appeal over their registration issues.
In January, the Consejo Superior de Deportes (CSD), the Spanish government’s High Sports Council, suspended a decision reached by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and La Liga to cancel the pair’s sporting licenses, required by players in Spain to represent their club or country.
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Barcelona had missed the December 31 deadline to extend the licenses of Olmo, 26, and Victor, 23, but appealed to the CSD. The CSD gave the pair temporary permission to continue playing for at least three months until a definitive ruling was made.
The CSD confirmed on Thursday that both players would maintain their licenses as, following a review, it deemed the ‘monitoring committee’ established by La Liga and the RFEF which had initially revoked the licenses was not entitled to make such decisions.
The CSD also addressed further concerns raised by La Liga this week. La Liga has reported to the authorities an auditor Barca had employed for four days and which played a vital role in them being allowed to register Olmo and Victor.
La Liga said Barcelona had reported three auditors to La Liga in the space of three months and that only the unnamed auditor had included the sale of VIP seating worth €100million at the as-yet unfinished Camp Nou in their statements to the league. The CSD said this decision “was not about the economic controls that La Liga realises with its associated clubs”.
Victor can play for Barcelona for the rest of the season (Jaime Reina/AFP via Getty Images)
La Liga typically grants licenses to players for the duration of their contracts but Olmo and Victor, who joined the club in the summer, were only given temporary permits for registration until the end of December due to Barcelona being over their salary limit. This was to allow the club time to prove fresh revenue streams.
Olmo was only allowed to be registered for the first half of the season due to long-term injuries sustained by other Barcelona players. 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.
Barcelona took steps to address their financial situation, announcing a new sponsorship deal with Nike in November. La Liga confirmed in January Barcelona had received money from the sale of VIP boxes at the Camp Nou.
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Olmo joined Barca from RB Leipzig in a €60m move in August. He has made 28 appearances in all competitions, providing eight goals and five assists. The midfielder had a clause inserted into his contract that would allow him to leave on a free transfer if Barcelona had been unable to register him.
Victor made his loan move from Girona to Barca permanent in the summer and has made 22 appearances in all competitions this season, the majority of which have been from the bench.
Barcelona are top of La Liga with nine games remaining, leading second-place Real Madrid by three points.
‘A huge win for Barcelona’ — analysis
This is a huge win for Barcelona and president Joan Laporta specifically, who has avoided what could have been another significant institutional crisis.
In sporting terms, this is fantastic news for Hansi Flick’s side. They enter a crunch period in their season with hopes of a treble very much on and have now left behind a saga that threatened the team’s excellent dressing room harmony.
Off the pitch, this is just the latest episode in a tense relationship that will remain between Barcelona and La Liga, and particularly with the competition’s president Javier Tebas. The Catalans have been pushing the league’s rules to their limit over the last few seasons, and while La Liga is helped by Barca fighting for all major trophies, this decision has created major doubts over their salary limit system – which has bitten hard at other Spanish clubs.
A significant number of La Liga clubs had been pressing the competition to be stricter than ever with Barca over the Olmo-Victor situation. This CSD ruling does not question the competition’s financial rules, but states La Liga and the RFEF were not entitled to revoke Olmo and Victor’s licenses. But do not expect this to be the last time you hear of these issues.
There is a new transfer window coming up in summer in which Barcelona will try to bolster their squad with high-calibre signings. Given this latest development, it is hard to see La Liga being anything but extremely firm towards the Catalan club.
(Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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