The reporter reported coldly The Olmo registration crisis has made Laporta, who thinks he is shrewd, a laughing stock in world football. Laporta has repeatedly "walked the tightrope" as the president of Barcelona in the past 4 years, and he has always been able to save the day at the last moment, but the good fortune of "stoppage time" cannot be with him forever. Such extreme actions will eventually make the player fall into the abyss.

It's just that Laporta's good use is exhausted, and the decline is in the player registration that should not happen in the least. The Barça management made a "historic" low-level mistake that could also lead to an economic loss of at least 200 million euros. Laporta's image as a "superman" president who has always succeeded in "critical operations" and his efforts to fill Barca's financial deficit have almost instantly come to naught.

Luck will come to an unfortunate time

Since becoming the president of Barcelona in March 2021, Laporta has been known for his continuous success in "critical operations" in the past four years. From the economic levers to reduce costs to signings, player registrations and more, Barcelona always get away with meeting deadlines. The earliest "critical operation" was on the closing day of the summer window in 2021, when Barcelona officially announced Griezmann's loan to Atletico Madrid one hour after the deadline, and two and a half hours later officially announced the loan of Luc de Jong from Sevilla, and then handed over the relevant documents to the professional league for review. In the winter window of January 2022, Aubameyang signed a contract one minute before the deadline for closing the window, and the file transfer was completed in "countdown".

As for player registration, Laporta has been a last-minute sprint for three consecutive summer windows. In the summer of 2022, it was defender Jules Kounde, and Laporta paid 11 million euros out of his own pocket to complete the registration on the eve of the summer window closing. For this reason, Kounde, who had already signed a contract, did not make his debut until the third round of La Liga. The protagonist of Barcelona's registration crisis in 2023 was replaced by Gavi, who at that time had similar terms to Olmo's contract, and if he could not register before June 30, he would become a free agent. Laporta, a lawyer by training, made full use of the "legal weapon" and successfully applied for provisional registration before the winter window closed. The late submission of follow-up documents led to the cancellation of Gavi's registration after only 50 days, and Barca appealed again in June, using the court ruling to pre-register. In July, Laporta and the board of directors submitted a €6.67 million guarantee to complete the registration of a number of new players and new signings, including Gavi, for the season.

At the last minute before the closing of the summer market in 2023, Barcelona completed the registration of Felix, Inigo and Cancelo. Joao Cancelo was successfully registered with Laporta who submitted a 20 million euro guarantee. In the January 2024 winter window, Gavi's serious injury allowed Barcelona to invoke La Liga's "casualty supplementary registration" clause to complete the registration of Brazil's talented goalscorer Roque. Last year, Almo was also registered due to Andreas Christensen's injury, and again relied on this clause to register until the end of the year. However, a series of fluke successes made Laporta overconfident that Olmo would continue to register successfully, and did not use all means in time to advance as soon as possible, which eventually led to the failure of the registration.

It's all leverage

Why does Laporta always choose to walk a tightrope and play "life and death" before the deadline? The root cause is that he continues to use economic leverage to fill the financial deficit, and he continues to taste the sweetness from it.

In the 2021/22 season alone, he completed 4 economic levers by "pre-selling" part of Barcelona's rights income for the next 15-25 years to alleviate the looming financial crisis. However, this opportunistic approach to the rules did not always succeed, and led the professional leagues to amend the salary cap rule to stipulate that the income from the sale of club assets would only account for 5% of the club's total income when calculating the salary cap. The new wage cap rules are aimed at reducing the club's unscrupulous business practices of selling assets, while curbing Laporta's leverage.

The successive successes of the initial economic levers have caused multiple consequences: the easing of Barcelona's financial crisis has made Laporta overly optimistic about income expectations, so he hastily introduced Lewandowski, Kounde, Raphinha, Felix, Olmo and others to compete with Real Madrid in a "superstar race", which has greatly increased Barcelona's financial pressure. Since then, the leverage to sell the Barcelona studio has continued to fail, and the three companies that have acquired the shares of the Barcelona studio have not paid in time, and the non-payment of up to 60 million euros has led to the rapid deterioration of Barça's financial situation, triggering a registration crisis that has lasted for two seasons.

Moreover, Barcelona had previously completed the registration of the contract with only economic leverage, but the final funds did not arrive, so the professional league required the club to submit proof of a down payment of at least 20% of the contract amount before recognizing the legitimacy of the transaction. And 85% of the payment must be in place within 18 months, and the contract will not be recognized after the deadline. Previously, the Court of Appeal + the means of economic leverage were tried and tested, so that Laporta did not realize the urgency of Olmo's registration. It was only after the appeal failed at the end of December last year that the sponsorship contract with Nike was accelerated, as well as the leverage to sell the VIP box at the Camp Nou. In the end, the latter's contract was closed in half at the expected psychological price, which only exchanged for the investment freedom of Barcelona's winter window, but could not be exchanged for the successful registration of Olmo.

The failure of Olmo's registration has theoretically cost Barcelona more than 200 million euros, largely diluting the income from the sale of VIP boxes at Nike and Camp Nou. But the bigger failure is that the credibility crisis of Laporta and Barcelona has erupted, and Barcelona has become the most negative example of the low-level mistakes in football operations, and the operation from the stadium to the mall will be greatly affected in the next few years.