Barcelona are seeking permission from global governing body FIFA to sign a central defender as an emergency back-up for the injured Thomas Vermaelen.
The former Arsenal man will undergo an operation on a thigh injury in Finland next week, keeping him on the sidelines for four or five months – meaning he is not likely to be available for many games, if at all, before the end of the season.
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The Nou Camp club are currently serving a transfer ban imposed by FIFA after breaking regulations on signing players under the age of 18 from overseas, preventing them from making any inbound transfers until January 2016.
But with a hearing on an appeal against the decision due to the heard next month, Barca are now launching another ambitious plea to be allowed to sign a defender due to the long-term absence of Vermaelen.
The strength of their case lies in the fact that clubs are regularly allowed to sign goalkeepers outside the usual transfer windows, and they will also argue that the injury was suffered after Vermaelen joined Barca for £15 million (Dh86m) this summer, rather than being a problem he arrived with.
The Catalan club are coming under heavy fire from fans and local media for signing a player who has not appeared in a single minute of first-team action since his expensive purchase, with increasingly unpopular sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta particularly in the line of fire. Zubizarreta was loudly whistled by Barca fans when he appeared in a tribute video to Lionel Messi after the Argentine forward broke the La Liga scoring record last weekend.
And news of Vermaelen’s likely absence throughout the entirety of his first season in Spain has done nothing to improve his standing with supporters.
Nevertheless, Barca are drawing up a list of targets in the unlikely scenario that FIFA approve their request, with Deportivo La Coruna’s Alberto Lopo and Granada’s Allan Nyom supposedly among the candidates.