BARCELONA: La Liga welcomed a court’s decision on Friday to reject Barcelona’s appeal for the precautionary registration of Dani Olmo for the rest of the season, which means the Spain international may not play for the club from Jan 1.

Barca signed Olmo in August for 55 million euros but due to the club being unable to meet La Liga’s wage cap, he was registered for the first half of the season.

The club had managed to register Olmo after long-term injuries kept first team players out of the squad for months, which allowed Barca to allocate a portion of their wages to register the 26-year-old.

But the four-month allowance for Olmo is set to expire at the end of the month and the Commercial Court number 10 of Barcelona rejected the club’s request to provisionally register him.

“La Liga has today learned of the ruling... rejecting the request for the provisional registration of Dani Olmo until June 30, 2025, on the grounds that none of the necessary conditions for the adoption of an interim measure have been met,” it said.

“The purpose of allowing additional spending is so that a long-term injury does not weaken the team’s competitiveness, not to use a long-term injury to allow the registration of players whose salaries exceed the limit, which is what FC Barcelona is attempting.”

La Liga added that the decision to not register Olmo was initially taken by its Budget Validation Body. It was then confirmed three times by its FFP Committee, its Social Appeals Committee and by the UEFA Second Instance Licensing Committee of the RFEF.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024