Dani Olmo’s Barcelona Future In Limbo Amid Registration Saga

Dani Olmo’s future at Barcelona was thrown into doubt on Tuesday as La Liga dampened the Catalan club’s urgent efforts to register the Spanish star amid their financial struggles.

La Liga’s strict spending limits restricted Olmo’s initial registration to December 31st, 2024, after Barcelona made the playmaker their flagship signing last summer.

The club was left racing against the clock to find alternatives for registering Olmo before midnight in Spain, after exhausting all legal options to extend the registration deadline to June 30, 2025.

Barcelona said on Tuesday that they had requested a new license from the Spanish football federation for Olmo and forward Pau Victor, who also faces the same registration predicament.

Spanish media reported that the move would buy Barcelona precious time to complete the administrative formalities.

“The club wishes to deny that it has asked for or received any extension from any other organization for the registration being requested,” it added in a statement.

LaLiga released a statement shortly afterward saying that as of Tuesday, “Barcelona has presented no alternative” complying with the league’s budget rules “that allows it to register any player from January 2nd.”

Barcelona had submitted documentation to La Liga indicating that it could raise 100 million euros to finance Olmo’s registration through the sale of VIP seats at its future expanded Camp Nou stadium.

However, Spanish media reported that the approval process for the paperwork was progressing slowly.

A Barcelona court rejected a request to extend the registration on Monday after a commercial court in the Catalan capital made the same decision last week.

The financially struggling club managed to register Olmo by utilizing 80 percent of injured defender Andreas Christensen’s salary, thanks to a provision in La Liga’s budget regulations that permits clubs to fill the void left by long-term absentees.

The commercial court argued that overspending was authorized to prevent a long-term injury undermining a team’s competitiveness but not to register players whose wages exceeded the salary limit.

Olmo’s contract, initially set to run until 2030, includes a clause that would release him if he could not be registered, according to Spanish media.

The potential exit of the Spain playmaker due to a bureaucratic mishap would be a significant and embarrassing setback for the third-placed Blaugrana as they pursue the title.

Olmo has notched five goals in La Liga this season and starred as Spain clinched Euro 2024 glory in Germany.