Various media in Brazil and France reported a few weeks ago that Neymar was going to exchange clothing sponsor Nike for Puma. The Brazilian Veja now states that the attacker of Paris Saint-Germain has signed the largest sponsorship contract in the world. Puma would pay Neymar 25 million euros a year, which is considerably more than Lionel Messi (Adidas) and Cristiano Ronaldo (Nike) receive from their clothing sponsors.

Neymar has worked with Nike since the age of thirteen, who is also a sponsor of his employer PSG. In 2011, the 28-year-old Brazilian attacker signed his last contract with the American sports brand, which lasted another two years. However, Neymar was able to unilaterally terminate that commitment before September 1, which allowed him to come out of the ongoing commitment with Nike. With the transfer of Puma, Neymar would earn twice as much as he did with Nike.

It was not known what Nike was paying him, but in 2018 some details leaked out about his contractual bonuses: Neymar would earn a million dollars for every Ballon d’Or he won, 50,000 dollars for every World Cup he won and an extra 200,000 dollars if he became a Tournament Player at a World Cup. He didn’t get those bonuses, but with activities like wearing Nike clothes and posting sponsored posts on social media, he made good money on the deal.

Puma is now going to pay Neymar 25 million euros a year, which is the biggest clothing deal so far. Ronaldo (Nike, 16.2 million euros) and Messi (Adidas, 20 million euros) will be able to credit their clothing sponsor a lot less on an annual basis. Puma also managed to snare Antoine Griezmann, Romelu Lukaku, Sergio Agüero, Luis Suárez, Marco Reus, David Silva, Jan Oblak, Gianluigi Buffon and Mario Balotelli, among others, while the German sports brand is also a clothing sponsor of, for example, PSV, Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund.