FC Barcelona Transfer Ban Upheld by FIFA

News broke today that FIFA will uphold the transfer ban that was placed on Barcelona back in April after the Spanish team tried to appeal the ban. Although the ban was to be effective immediately, FIFA decided to suspend the ban while the appeal process was taking place. Barcelona didn’t do anything too spectacular in the gift of a transfer window anywa…..oh wait, they did. They managed to reel in superstar Luis Suarez and pulled him away from Liverpool.

Despite losing Cesc Fabregas to Chelsea, they managed to bring in a replacement in Ivan Rakitic from Sevilla. Barcelona brought in a few more players, but the two that are most notable are Rakitic and Suarez.

Suarez seems to be at the center of the football world following his antics at the 2014 World Cup. In case you somehow missed the news, Suarez did his best Walking Dead impression and took a bite out of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during their final group game. As an Italian myself, there’s a big can of worms that can be opened here, but that’s not what this article is about.

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Barcelona may have potentially pulled a fast one over FIFA and many more with their acquisitions this summer. Sure, they can’t make another transfer (once this period ends) until January of 2016 but the players that they managed to bring in may outweigh the talent they will miss out in the next two windows. Soccer transfer windows are not comparable to trade deadlines or free agency periods that you find in other sports such as MLB, NBA, NFL, and the NHL. Players are transferred with small contracts, large contracts, expiring contracts, you name it.

As long as the team pays the monetary price for that player, there are usually no other strings attached. Guys that Barcelona may have wanted to sign will, in all likelihood, still be available a year from then in 2016. The only bad side to this is that the value may be more than it would be now. Suarez’s value surely went up after a stellar year in the English Premier League as well as a solid World Cup (outside of The Bite).

You can also argue that Barcelona could have easily gone after Suarez and Rakitic when the ban expired (in what would’ve been next summer) since, as stated above, players are available no matter what their contracts say. The difference is, if Barcelona took the ban and didn’t get Suarez and Rakitic immediately, that’s a full season of La Liga action, Copa del Rey, and Champions League fixtures that would probably play out differently than they will now. Instead, they still get these two guys for the 2014-15 campaign and will feel considerably better about “serving” their punishment. An organization like Barcelona will not be satisfied with a mediocre season, no matter what the circumstances.

Also, a team like Barcelona will always have the funds to make blockbuster moves. This isn’t a situation where clubs have a great season or get a boost in funds due to prize money and look to use those funds immediately because things could turn south. Barcelona, like Real Madrid or Manchester City or Manchester United, will always have a very sizable transfer budget to work with.

So this is where I ask the question at hand one more time.

Has Barcelona pulled off a mad heist despite the ban being upheld?

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