Barcelona’s Olmo and Victor Get Green Light to Play for Rest of Season After Legal Victory
Financial Fair Play Dispute Resolved in Favor of Catalan Club
- The situation has involved a tense back-and-forth over player registration
- The CSD has declared that Olmo and Victor's registrations are valid.
- The financial wrangling stems from Barcelona's efforts to comply with La Liga's Financial Fair Play rules
Football fans in Kumasi following La Liga will be interested to hear that FC Barcelona has received a significant boost: forwards Dani Olmo and Pau Victor have been cleared to play for the remainder of the 2024-25 season. The decision comes after a ruling by Spain’s National Sports Council (CSD).
The situation has involved a tense back-and-forth over player registration.
La Liga had initially granted Barcelona temporary licenses for Olmo and Victor last summer. However, the league later revoked these, claiming the Catalan club hadn’t proven they met financial fair play rules by the December 31st deadline.
Barcelona appealed, and back in January, the CSD allowed a temporary reinstatement of the two players.
Just yesterday, Wednesday evening in Spain (likely today in Ghana), La Liga reiterated its stance, stating that Barcelona still lacked the financial muscle to permanently register the forwards. They even announced a reduction in Barcelona’s permitted wage spending due to alleged issues with their financial reports for the current season.
However, the CSD has now stepped in decisively, overriding the agreement between La Liga and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).
The CSD has declared that Olmo and Victor’s registrations are valid. Their reasoning hinges on the RFEF’s admission that “there is no federation resolution that agreed to the cancellation of the licences” and that its initial decision to withhold the licenses is “null and void.”
The financial wrangling stems from Barcelona’s efforts to comply with La Liga’s Financial Fair Play rules. On January 3rd, the club announced a deal to sell VIP boxes at the Camp Nou (currently being rebuilt) to generate €100 million (around 83 million British Pounds) to facilitate the players’ permanent registration.
However, La Liga contended that this deal wasn’t properly reflected in Barcelona’s submitted accounts and had been approved by a different auditor.
Dani Olmo, a product of Barcelona’s renowned La Masia academy, rejoined the club last summer for a significant £52 million fee after playing for Dinamo Zagreb and RB Leipzig. He’s been a key attacking player, featuring in 28 matches this season, with 13 of those appearances coming since the CSD’s initial temporary ruling.
Pau Victor, another graduate of La Masia, has also been involved in the first team, making 22 appearances this term, including five since the temporary reinstatement.
This final decision from the CSD provides much-needed certainty for Barcelona as they head into the final weeks of the season. Fans in Kumasi and across the globe will be watching to see how having Olmo and Victor definitively available impacts the team’s performance in La Liga and any other competitions they are still involved in.
