Dani Olmo has never hidden how much his time in Croatia meant to him, and now another detail has come to light, showing how attached he remains to the country where he took his first big steps in football.
Well-known Croatian agent Andy Bara, the man who brought Olmo from Barcelona to Dinamo, spoke about the Spanish international and his character. Especially striking is the story of Vukovar, a city that left a powerful impression on Olmo when he was a teenager playing for the Zagreb club.
Olmo donates 2 percent of his gross salary to Vukovar.
“Dani Olmo is extremely attached to Zagreb and Croatia. I’ll tell you something the public didn’t know until now, and I just hope Dani won’t hold it against me. Since leaving Dinamo, at every club he has played for, Olmo has donated two percent of his annual gross salary to Vukovar. Given that he earns serious money, these are large sums,” Andy Bara told Podcast Inkubator, adding:
“He did it while playing for RB Leipzig, and he still does it today at Barcelona, and he has never wanted to talk about it publicly. His big wish is to finish his career at Dinamo, and he hopes it will come true.”
Olmo arrived in Zagreb in 2014 as a 16-year-old from Barcelona’s La Masia, and a trip to a tournament in Vukovar was one of the key moments at the start of his Croatian story. After that tournament, he was promoted to Dinamo’s senior squad.
He later spoke about his Vukovar experience on several occasions. He explained that he talked with people who had lived through the war, began learning more about what had happened in Croatia, and felt a need to help, in some way, the people who still feel the consequences of the war today.
Olmo left Dinamo for RB Leipzig in early 2020 and returned to Barcelona four years later. He clearly never forgot Croatia, Dinamo, or Vukovar.
