Barcelona have had their appeal against a two-window transfer ban rejected by FIFA following a hearing on Wednesday.
The Spanish giants will be barred from signing players in the next two transfer windows, taking them through until January 2016, after breaking the transfer rules related to signing players for their famed La Masia academy,
Barca though are not taking the decision well and have already announced, just as they did with the Luis Suarez ban, that they will now appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
A club statement read: ‘Regarding the resolution handed today by FIFA’s appeal committee with regards to the transfer and registrations of players under 18, FC Barcelona announces that it will continue to defend its interests to the highest sporting legal court, in this case the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
‘FC Barcelona cannot agree in any way with the resolution that goes against the spirit of our Masia (Barcelona’s youth academy), an example of academic, human and sporting development, recognised worldwide.’
FIFA announced in April that Barca would be unable to sign any players for the next two transfer windows, but the Spanish giants immediately appealed the decision which caused the embargo to be postponed pending the appeal.
Barcelona took advantage of the embargo to go on a summer spending spree with the £75 million acquisition of Suarez from Liverpool along with the signings of Thomas Vermaelen, Jeremy Mathieu, Claudio Bravo and Ivan Rakitic.
It is really difficult to sign players top quality players in the January transfer window, so Barcelona will have to wait until summer of 2016 before they can significantly boost their squad. Which is why I expect Barca to be very active over the next 12 days in the transfer market, as it will be their last opportunity for a while to strengthen a squad that still has some holes to it defensively.