BARCELONA - You couldn't make it up!

Barcelona's transfer embargo now back in place (after they signed all the players they were after )

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Barcelona will be unable to sign players until January 2016 once the current transfer window shuts, after world governing body Fifa rejected the club's appeal against a transfer ban.

The Spaniards were given the 14-month ban after being found to have breached rules on signing international players under the age of 18.

It was suspended after they appealed, allowing them to sign Luis Suarez.

Barcelona will now take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

In a statement, the club said it would "continue defending its interests before the highest sporting authority, in this case the Court of Arbitration for Sport".

"FC Barcelona may not in any way share a resolution that is an affront to the spirit of our [academy] Masia, a world renowned example of academic, human and sporting education," added the club.

The ban will start in the next transfer window, early next year, which means their summer acquisitions will be unaffected.

And the Catalan club could, if they wanted, sign more players before the current transfer window ends on 31 August.

The Spaniards have also been ordered to pay a fine of 450,000 Swiss Francs (£305,000) and been told by Fifa "to regularise" the situation of all minor players concerned.

"FC Barcelona is to serve a transfer ban which will see the club prevented from registering any players at both national and international level for two complete and consecutive transfer periods," read a Fifa statement.

Meanwhile, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) has been told to pay a fine of 500,000 Swiss Francs (£340,000) and told to "regularise its regulatory framework and existing system concerning the international transfer of minors in football" within a year.

The Catalans have signed eight players during the current transfer window for a total of about £113m.

They paid a reported £75m for former Liverpool striker Suarez, although Barcelona subsequently said the figure was nearer £65m, while defender Thomas Vermaelen was bought from Arsenal for £15m.

The Spanish champions were originally sanctioned by Fifa's disciplinary committee on 2 April for breaking the rules in the case of 10 minors and punished with the ban and a fine of 450,000 Swiss francs.

After Barcelona followed through on their promise to fight the ban, Fifa decided that due to the complexity of the case and the possibility of a further appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), it was unlikely to be concluded before the opening of the current transfer window on 1 July, and therefore suspended the punishment.

The Fifa investigation centred on several players aged under 18 who were registered and played for Barcelona between 2009 and 2013.

In April, Fifa told BBC Sport the identity of these players is confidential.

FIFA the biggest joke in err football!!

FIFA the biggest joke in err football!!

corrupt from top to bottom especially the man at the top

What a farce. Modern football.

Then you haVE CELTIC allowed back in over a msitake on player who comes on once tie is over for 5 minutes - corrupt

so corrupt is f*cking unbelieabavle

Try listening to a retard trying to speak in his own language on sky sports news celebrating his latest transfer!

That's just stupid. How they earn ten times that of a surgeon is beyond me???

Yo blood, buzin bout the new crib. Sick! I mean wtf seriously. I hope he has someone to wipe his dribble from his mouth.

Glad I'm welsh, at least our language hasn't become a broken Jamaican/cockney mixture of garbled garbage.

There may or may not be corruption in football, time will tell; but these two decisions seem very sensible.

In April FIFA decided that Barcelona were guilty and deserved a year's transfer ban. FIFA felt that Barcelona would appeal to CAS and it would take longer than the 2-3 months to the start of the transfer window for CAS to hear the appeal. So a decision to suspend the ban until 2015 was sensible. There are two likely outcomes:
(a) CAS allow the appeal, in that case Barcelona will not be banned and they will not have suffered a ban which should not have been applied.
(b) CAS confirm the FIFA ban and Brcelona will not be able to buy players in 2015. Even with notice it will still have an impact, their rivals such as Real Madrid will be buying players and Barcelona will not be able to do so. Consider the impact it would have on Cardiff City if despite Ole buying a load of players during the summer of 2014 he could not buy any in 2015.

As far as the Celtic case is concerned, they were very lucky but UEFA correctly applied their rules that when an ineligible player is fielded the offending team should be judged to have lost the game 3-0. It seems very tough when the player came on as a very late sub, but clear rules are better than a subjective approach. Remember when Man U won the Champions League with 2 very late goals? How long does a player have to be on the pitch to be deemed to have made an unfair impact - 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 15 minutes? Imagine it was 10 minutes and there were arguements over whether a player was on the pitch for 9 minutes 59 seconds or 10 minutes 1 second?

UEFA and FIFA deserve a lot of criticism for the way the game is run, but in these cases I feel that they have made the correct and transparent decisions in accordance with their rules.

As usual Gavin, corruption for the big clubs.

Uefalona.....