Will Dani Olmo play for Barcelona against Athletic in LaLiga after Gündogan’s departure?

Barcelona have made some significant changes to their roster in the last couple of weeks, with the LaLiga giants spending a reported €60 million ($67.02 million) on Dani Olmo, who was previously in their academy, before letting Ilkay Gündogan, last summer’s big-name signing, return to Manchester City.

Why Dani Olmo didn’t play against Valencia last weekend

Like Gündogan and Iñigo Martínez 12 months ago, Olmo has been left to wait to make his debut due to Barça’s well-documented financial problems. Because they were in excess of LaLiga’s spending limit, the Catalans weren’t able to play their new signing in their opening game of the season against Valencia last weekend.

To put it simply, the club needs to raise more revenue and clear their wage bill to be able to register Olmo with the league, with Gündogan’s departure going some way to helping.

Speaking to the media ahead of Saturday’s home game against Athletic Club, new manager Hansi Flick said: “Dani’s ready to play. We’re waiting for [him to be registered]. Hopefully, [on Saturday] he’s in the team because that would help us a lot. He’s an outstanding player. You can see in training, when he’s under pressure, around the goal, he’s unbelievable. It’ll be good to have him in the team as soon as possible.”

Barça race to have Olmo for Athletic

Barcelona are hopeful of being able to register Olmo in time to face Athletic tomorrow (Saturday, August 24), although it very much looks as if it will go down to the wire.

According to reports in Spain, getting Gündogan off the wage bill alone is not enough to allow Barcelona to register Olmo with the LaLiga. Brazilian forward Vitor Roque is thought to be hours away from securing a loan move to Real Betis, which would also help, although young defender Mikayil Faye’s pending transfer to Rennes may also have to go through for Barça to have any chance of registering new players.

Club bosses are said to be working around the clock to get those deals for Roque and Faye done, in the hope that will lead to LaLiga giving them the green light to register Olmo to play at the weekend.

The club could also generate more revenue in other ways, with a new kit deal with sponsors Nike rumoured to be close. Whether that could be done before tomorrow’s game, however, appears unlikely.