Joan Laporta has made a serious effort to bring Neymar back to Barcelona this year, reports RAC1. The president of Barça, according to the Catalan radio station, sent two envoys to Paris to entice Neymar to return. Although the Brazilian desperately wanted to go to Barcelona, the club was reportedly helped by a deposit of no less than twenty million euros into the bank account of Neymar’s father.
Neymar left Barcelona in 2017 for an astronomical fee of €222 million and then signed with Paris Saint-Germain for five years. At the beginning of this calendar year, the 29-year-old winger was at a new crossroads in his career: given his contract expiring in 2022, he could have bet on a transfer, like teammate Kylian Mbappé did this summer.
Laporta’s approach to Neymar was therefore promising. The Brazilian is said to have stated that he was eager to return to the Camp Nou and reunite with Lionel Messi. According to RAC1 however, the plan fell through when Neymar’s father suddenly received a €20m deposit from Qatar, where rumors of a transfer to Barcelona had also arrived. The money did not officially come from PSG.
A transfer to Barcelona was therefore a thing of the past. On May 8 of this year, PSG officially announced that Neymar had re-signed until mid-2026. Given the huge financial problems that later surfaced at Barcelona, a return of the Brazilian would probably have been impossible anyway. The bitter thing for Barcelona and Laporta is that Neymar’s big wish to play with Messi again came true, but in Paris.
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