Dani Olmo’s Situation is More Complicated Than You Think | OneFootball

The best-case scenario is that Dani Olmo and Pau Victor are registered to play for Barcelona as soon as possible. Of course that’s the best-case scenario. But even with that version of the sage playing out, there will still be a lingering downside for the Barcelona brass after another window with registration drama. Yet, the other side of the coin is that if Olmo and Victor are registered after all, that reflects poorly on La Liga and RFEF. Either way, the outcome will make someone, or multiple someones, look silly.

The argument against Joan Laporta is clear. Why would he approve the transfer of Dani Olmo in the first place if he always knew that registering him would be an issue now? The club was always playing with fire with Olmo. He was only registered in the first place due to an injury to Andreas Christensen. But signing big names on slim financial margins has always been Laporta’s strategy, even in his first presidency. The former lawyer takes the risk to sign big names at the expense of future assets in the hopes that trophies and success will help bring in revenue that will overset the mortgaged assets. Much like Barcelona’s high line under Flick, it’s high risk, high reward.

Truthfully, there is an argument that Laporta’s risks haven’t really been that risky. Selling future assets like VIP seats at the new stadium wouldn’t be a talking point if the Camp Nou had been ready on-time. Laporta’s financial folly was needing to sell the seats – sure, but the political folly of overpromising the Camp Nou’s construction and grand opening is the one that people will latch on to. Barcelona’s presidents are politicians after all, and any politician in Spain who relies on construction timelines and deadlines to be met is operating under a veil of naivety.

The other piece of naivety that the board needs to answer to exists in all the issues with Barça Vision. Barça Studios, Barça Media, Barça Vision, regardless of the name, was what has held up the club from reaching a stable situation and the 1:1 for multiple seasons now. Future TV revenues, due to Sixth Street investment firm, as well as the Goldman Sachs deal, resulted in upfront cash that the club would hope offset the lowered valuation of Barça Vision by auditors during the 2023-24 financial year. That loss, which was €145m, affected La Liga’s calculation of Barcelona’s FFP. This was due to late or missing payments from other investors in Barça Vision, including Libero. FC Barcelona is the majority owner of their subsidiary company, Barça Vision, but they only only 51% of the shares. The rest is owned by other investors including Aramark, Libero, Socios.com, Vestigia, and Orpheus Media.

The good news is that due to Barcelona taken the loss of €145m on their books for the 2023-24 financial year, this summer’s transfer window should be better. Especially with the guaranteed revenue from the stadium. To be very kind to Laporta and the board, their only big mistake was not securing the payments from the investors on-time, or failing to negotiate deals with other investors that would have given the club the proper cushion they needed.

That’s the argument that opposition groups to Laporta are making, asking for his immediate resignation. These groups include FCB Compromisers, Blaugrana Dignity, El Senyor Ramon, FCB Follow-up, La Resistencia del Palau, Si al Futur, Suma Barça, Som un Clam, Un Crit Valent, and Blaugrana Transparency. Whether or not socios agree that Laporta and the board deserve a motion of censure will be up for debate in the coming weeks and should be heavily influenced by the registration or lack there of for Olmo and Victor.

So there is the criticism for Laporta and the board. But as podcast listener Dirk suggested on the most recent match review, are the rules that La Liga and the RFEF put in place to help clubs avoid financial ruin doing the exact opposite? Some questions that Dirk proposed to ponder:

FC Barcelona may be using some of those arguments with the High Council of Sports (CSD), who will now hear the case regarding Olmo and Victor. Either way, this latest saga has exposed bigger questions about how all parties do their business.

Here is the latest match review: