You have to feel sorry for Dani Olmo. The 26-year-old had the best summer of his life in 2024, producing a series of stunning displays to help Spain to the European Championship title. Olmo netted crucial goals against Germany and France, won a share of the Golden Boot trophy and was named in UEFA’s Team of the Tournament. That rubber-stamped his dream move from RB Leipzig to FC Barcelona, and under the club’s respected new head coach Hansi Flick, Olmo should have been looking forward to a fine domestic campaign.
But the dream has quickly turned into a nightmare, with Barcelona’s financial plight now so bad that they can barely afford to register him as a player – creating the potential scenario of the Spaniard spending months out of the game on the sidelines, or being forced to move elsewhere. However, one last pull of the financial levers that Barca have become so fond of could yet solve the problem.
Not So VIP
Barcelona have been financially crippled by potential FFP breaches: in layman’s terms, they have historically spent more money than they are allowed to as per the rules of La Liga and UEFA, as well as succumbing to debts thought to be in the region of £450 million (down from the £1 billion in debt back in 2021).
Rather than embarking on a fire-sale of their players to balance their books, Barca have instead sold off a number of assets in a bid to improve the revenue side of their profit & loss account. In the past, that has seen them sell a cut of their La Liga TV rights to a third party, American private equity firm Sixth Street, in a bid to make a quick buck at the expense of long-term gain. Barcelona have also been forced to sell their majority ownership stake in the club’s own media network, Barca Studios, just to free up funds to improve their playing squad.
The latest financial lever to be yanked is the cheap sale of VIP boxes at their revamped Camp Nou home to an unknown consortium in the Middle East. It’s a move that could net the club around £83 million, which in turn will allow them to register Olmo for the second half of the 2024/25 campaign. But the question remains: what will FC Barcelona do when they’ve got nothing left to sell off on the cheap?
Where Did It All Go Wrong for FC Barcelona?
Once the most successful club side in the world, FC Barcelona are now on the periphery in the Champions League and even in La Liga. As is often the case in modern football, money is the root of all their problems – spending too much of it that they didn’t have, to be precise.
Josip Maria Bartomeu
Individuals like to blame and scapegoat one another. The finger has been pointed at Barca’s former president, Josip Maria Bartomeu, whose time in charge was so gaffe-ridden that it wouldn’t have been a surprise if it had been revealed that he was starring in an undercover prank TV show.
Joan Laporta
Bartomeu, meanwhile, has blamed his successor, Joan Laporta, for perennial overspending and treating FFP rules as if they were guidance, rather than actual hard-and-fast regulation. La Liga has economic control regulations stipulating a 1:1 ratio of revenue and net debt, but it’s a requirement that Barca have been unable to fulfil given the depth of their historic debt and their ongoing outgoings.
Dani Olmo
The acquisition of Olmo, which will cost the club £85 million when the transfer fee and salary for the duration of his contract are combined, is another head-scratcher given that Barca were already breaching economic control rules BEFORE he was signed.
La Liga’s Salary Cap
Things are complicated further by La Liga’s salary cap, which prevents clubs from registering players if doing so would take them over the limit. It’s a position that Barcelona have routinely found themselves in, which in turn has seen La Liga authorities reduce their salary cap as punishment… a vicious circle, you might say.
All of which has led to some supporters’ groups to call for Laporta to resign as president, although reports suggest he has no intention of doing so. Laporta has, rather boldly, proclaimed that the ‘darkest era’ of the club’s history is coming to an end, although the Olmo registration debacle would suggest that the president has rose tinted spectacles very much in place.
Palancas
The various assets that Barcelona have sold in order to be able to sign new players are called palancas – essentially the Spanish word for ‘levers’. But what happens when there’s no levers left to pull? As one La Liga pundit put it best: “The palancas are a case of bread today, hunger tomorrow.”
Could Olmo Walk Away from Barcelona?
If Barcelona are unable to register Olmo, or any other player for that matter, it leaves the individual in an awkward predicament. They won’t be able to play first-team football while unregistered, and to make matters worse that designation also means they are unable to seek a loan move elsewhere, too. It’s very much a case of footballing limbo – although there is one potential, albeit unwanted, solution.
The player can simply tear up their contract and walk away; no court in the land would block them from doing so, given that their economic rights are being infringed by their employer. That would make Olmo available on a free transfer, which would really hit Barcelona hard – although the player has reportedly said he has no plans to walk away from the club he supported as a child.
Another possible solution would see Barcelona try to persuade La Liga to temporarily register Olmo, but solely for the purpose of selling him in the transfer window. But even then, Barca still owe RB Leipzig – Olmo’s former club – money from that transfer deal, so any financial gain would be negligible. It all feeds into the feeling that FC Barcelona’s days as a giant of world football are over the foreseeable future.
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