Barça pays for its excesses: Dani Olmo without a team in 2025

Barcelona have been playing with fire for years and in 2025 they have been burnt. The club's spending in recent seasons has been pushing the club to the limit in terms of the wages it pays its players. Bartomeu raised the salaries of the squad inordinately and LaLiga turned a blind eye during many markets. 

Messi's departure was necessary but not definitive. A saving of 50 million euros, although shortly afterwards it became known that the club continues to pay the Argentine part of his salary while he plays for Inter Miami. Something similar to what happens with Piqué once he retires. 

With Joan Laporta as Barcelona's new president, the team decided to maintain its sporting level by spending money it did not have. The famous levers: income that Barça received in exchange for selling all its assets in the future. Many of them worked, but others never materialised, although LaLiga decided to give them the go-ahead, as was the case with Barça Studios and the 40 million euros that never arrived. 

The 55 million euros paid this summer for Dani Olmo to Leipzig and the 2.7 million to Girona for Pau Víctor put the club in an unprecedented situation. They had to give Christensen a long-term release with barely a month left on his contract in order to sign Olmo. The Danish player was left without a record for no reason and Barça once again came close to ‘mobbing’ him, as happened the previous summer with De Jong when they leaked all kinds of information to the press with the aim of getting rid of him. 

Four months later, Laporta has not found the money to sign Olmo and Victor. The RFEF and LaLiga have been unable to help the Catalan club any more and as of 1 January both players have disappeared from the Spanish employers' website in a clear sign that they are no longer part of Flick's squad. 

The result is even worse for Barcelona because as of 1 January 2025, Dani Olmo is not only a free agent to renegotiate his future, the player has to receive his full fee until 2028 and Leipzig to collect the remainder of the 55 million euros agreed at the time. 

Laporta is living a dramatic situation at the helm of Barça, but he does not want to see the reality. A constant flight forward since he arrived in the presence. The professionals who have accompanied him at the head of the financial department have come up against a populist profile that does not take or allow hard but necessary decisions to be taken. 

Whatever happens with Dani Olmo, Barcelona continues to embarrass itself. Pushing LaLiga and UEFA to the limit is no longer working and its future could involve licking its economic wounds with a low profile that will make it suffer a sporting journey over the next few seasons.