Real Madrid have walked into an administrative crisis as they close in on 19-year-old Ivorian Yan Diomande. The Spanish giants now risk breaching the maximum number of players allowed under La Liga rules, leaving club president Florentino Perez with an urgent dilemma to solve before the window shuts.
According to Spanish newspaper "Mundo Deportivo", a summer strategy that once looked clearly defined has run into a sharp regulatory obstacle. Cucurella, Dumfries, Bernardo Silva and Konate have all arrived this summer, and the as yet unofficial capture of Diomande would take the squad to 26. That is one more than the competition permits.
The bigger problem is that every current player refuses to leave, even those outside the coaching staff's plans. France's Eduardo Camavinga stands as the clearest example. Coach Jose Mourinho told him plainly he would not get a chance to play if he chose to stay, yet the Frenchman is determined to remain at any cost. The same goes for Raul Asencio, another man the Portuguese coach does not want and for whom the club have spent weeks searching for an exit, without success.
Real Madrid know this predicament well from recent seasons, and they are not ruling out controversial fixes they have used before. Selling 50% of a player's rights tops the list. That formula smoothed Fran Garcia's move to Real Betis, and it also freed up space for the likes of Alvaro Rodriguez, now at Bournemouth, and Mario Gila, a recent signing for Milan, while preserving a future financial return.
Another option on the table involves registering players under the age of 23 in the squad of reserve side Real Madrid Castilla. It happened last season with Argentine Franco Mastantuono, who never featured for the second team yet took a place in the first-team squad in return for wearing an unconventional number, 30.
Perez is racing the clock on this thorny file. The management must pull off something exceptional to avoid missing the chance to register the new players, and to hand the coach a competitive, balanced squad that obeys the rules when the new season kicks off.