Who is responsible for Barça's FIFA mess?

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld the FIFA ruling banning Barcelona from signing players during the next two transfer windows.

The reason for the ban is the club's repeated practice since 2009 of signing non-EU, underage players, in breach of regulations laid down by football's world governing body.

The ban came as a huge blow for the Catalans, who will now not be able to strengthen their squad for the 2015/16 season. At any other club, heads would have rolled after such a mess, one which leaves the first team at a clear disadvantage to their biggest rivals.

 That is not the case at Barcelona. Although several members of the board have called for a report into what happened, nobody at the club has moved a muscle to clarify events. Barça's former general manager, Antoni Rossich, was supposed to put together a report, but he left the club without doing so. Nobody is investigating or looking for those responsible for the fiasco.

It is not easy to point a finger at any one person responsible for such a monumental mistake. Everybody at the club, from coaching and legal staff, all the way up to the board and the president, completely ignored FIFA's regulations. There was a total lack of internal communication when FIFA opened an inquiry and told the club it was in breach of Article 19 of its regulations on the status and transfer of players. The board were unaware of any such inquiry until much later.