MY ACCOUNT
Dani Alves is the new signing to miss out on Barcelona’s Europa League squad after the club confirmed his omission on Wednesday.
The Brazilian, who rejoined the Blaugrana in November, was finally registered for LaLiga duty at the start of January but will not feature for the club in their European campaign.
Alves was joined at the club by fellow new arrivals Ferran Torres, Adama Traore and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in January, but only three would be permitted to be included in the Europa League squad.
UEFA regulations prohibit any more than three new additions to European squads after the January transfer window.
As such, Barca had more new signings than free spaces, with 38-year-old Alves ultimately the one left out.
Ousmane Dembele has been included, however, despite his contract stand-off seeing tensions rise at the club over the past few weeks.
President Joan Laporta openly suggested the situation might make it “more difficult” for Dembele to feature, though he did leave that up to the discretion of head coach Xavi.
Like Alves, young forwards Ez Abde and Ferran Jutgla were left out of the selection despite breaking into the first-team squad – neither were registered with UEFA at the start of the season, nor do either qualify as a homegrown Barca player, therefore would have been competing with the new signings for spaces in the squad.
Barca face Napoli in their Europa League knockout play-off, hosting them on February 17 before going to Naples a week later.
