Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid are set to hear the result of their appeals on the FIFA signings bans imposed for breaking youth transfer regulations.
Last January, Madrid and Atletico were banned from making transfers during the summer 2016 and winter 2017 windows, after FIFA ruled they had broken the laws regarding the international transfers of players aged under-16.
With Barcelona having served a similar punishment for similar offences in 2015, both Spanish capital clubs denied any wrongdoing and made submissions to FIFA's appeal committee, with Real Madrid repeatedly calling the sanctions "absurd" and saying they were confident of overturning the ban.
AS now report that the club expect to hear a decision from FIFA on either Aug. 12 or 13.
Should that first appeal be turned down, both Madrid and Atletico are expected to follow Barca's example in immediately taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which means they would still be allowed to add to their squads this summer.
Real coach Zinedine Zidane had suggested during Madrid's preseason preparations in the United States that Aug. 13 could be a key date for them.
"Until the 31 anything can happen, but before the 13th we must make decisions," he said.
Madrid have had a relatively quiet summer so far, with the only senior signing being Alvaro Morata's return to the Bernabeu from Juventus after the club activated his buyback clause.
The club have actually made a profit so far after Jese Rodriguez and Denis Cheryshev were sold to Paris Saint-Germain and Villarreal respectively, but they missed out on Paul Pogba, who joined Manchester United from Juventus for a world record €105 million fee.
Atletico have made more moves to strengthen their squad through the signings of Kevin Gameiro from Sevilla, Nico Gaitan from Benfica and Sime Vrsaljko from Sassuolo.
During the 2014 summer transfer window -- when they knew they would be unable to sign new players in the following 12 months -- Barcelona spent more than €150m on players including Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Thomas Vermaelen and Jeremy Mathieu, and won the La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League Treble the following season.
After this week's UEFA Super Cup win over Sevilla, Zidane was asked again if confirmation from FIFA of a 12-month ban would affect their transfer plans, and said he was relaxed about the situation.
"We are working on it, we will see what happens," he said. "If we cannot sign anyone, we won't. We have a very deep squad and a very good squad, players with experience and young players. The important thing is the group."
Madrid president Florentino Perez also said after the Sevilla game that it was difficult to improve the quality of player his team already had.
"We've got an extraordinary squad," he said. "We've still got to work very hard and our ambition is always to win it all. We've got a great player in every position on the pitch. Up until Aug. 31 anything can happen, but we're really satisfied with the players that we've got. It's very difficult to improve our squad. We've got the best players in every position."