Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said he remains confident that Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor will be able to play for the club again this season.
LaLiga and the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced Saturday they had rejected Barça’s request to re-register the duo after the Catalan club missed a Dec. 31 deadline to prove they were compliant with the league’s financial fair play (FFP) rules.
Olmo, a €60 million ($61.9m) summer signing from RB Leipzig, has a clause in his contract which would allow him to leave for free if he remains unregistered for the second half of the season, but Flick says the Spain international is committed to Barça.
“I have the confidence that the club will do it,” Flick said in a news conference after Saturday’s 4-0 Copa del Rey win at Barbastro, a match which Olmo and Víctor were both forced to miss.
“This morning I spoke with Dani and Dani wants to play for Barça. We need him and also Pau Víctor. They are very good players. We need both of them. We have to wait. This is the only thing we can do now.”
A brace from Robert Lewandowski and goals from Eric García and Pablo Torre helped Barça book their place in the Copa round of 16, with Flick insisting the drama around Olmo and Víctor will not affect the team.
“I think everyone wants that both of them are back because they are important players for our offence,” he added.
“Today we played very focused. We played like we want. There was nothing to see or to feel that the team suffered about that. We are professional, we have to play and the team did really good.”
Defender Ronald Araújo, who made his first appearance of the season against Barbastro, also expressed his desire for Barça to find a fix to the Olmo and Víctor situation as soon as possible.
“It’s left a bad taste because they are our teammates,” he told reporters. “We hope the club can resolve the issue. Meanwhile, we now have to turn our attention to Wednesday’s Supercopa [semifinal] against Athletic Club.”
Araújo had not played since injuring his hamstring representing Uruguay at the Copa América last July, but he managed to complete 90 minutes on Saturday.
“I’m really happy to win the game, but also on a personal level to be back and play 90 minutes,” he added.
“I didn’t know if I could play the whole match. The coach was asking me if I felt OK [to continue] and I did. It’s important to build up minutes. I’m delighted.”
Flick said Lamine Yamal should also have recovered from an ankle injury to feature in the Supercopa next week, while Raphinha will travel to Saudi Arabia with the squad despite missing the Barbastro game with a “small problem.”
Barça meet Athletic in Jeddah on Wednesday, with the winners facing either Real Madrid or Mallorca in the final on Jan. 12.