Neymar knows nothing of alleged fraud in his transfer from Santos to Barcelona in 2013. The Paris Saint-Germain attacker pointed to his father in court on Tuesday: “I sign everything he tells me to do,” Neymar stressed. but once. The Brazilian investment company DIS claims that nine years ago there was fraud with the transfer fee of a total of 57 million euros.
The lawsuit filed by DIS started this week and will last at least until October 31. Neymar said in a courtroom in Barcelona on Tuesday that he was never involved in the contract talks at the time. “My father always arranged things like that and still does now,” said the former attacker of the Catalan powerhouse, who played for Barcelona for a total of four years. “I sign whatever he tells me to do.”
DIS has been claiming for some years that Barcelona and the Neymar camp have committed fraud around the transfer fee of 57 million euros. Tens of millions would have ended up in a company owned by the father of the thirty-year-old attacker via a detour. DIS paid two million euros in 2009 for forty percent of the transfer rights of the then seventeen-year-old player. Four years later, Neymar forced a transfer to Barcelona for the sum of 57 million euros. Seventeen million euros of that went to Santos and the other 40 million euros to Neymar and his family.
According to the Brazilian investment company, the forty percent of the 17 million euros received is far too little and much more money has actually been deposited for the Neymar deal. A Spanish investigating judge already established at an earlier stage that the actual transfer amount is 83 million euros. DIS says it is entitled to forty percent of the forty million euros that Barcelona, with Sandro Rosell as chairman at the time, transferred to Neymar’s family. As a result, other clubs interested in the attacker would have been deliberately sidelined.
Real Madrid, for example, was also in the race for the signature of Neymar in 2013, who therefore chose Barcelona. It is therefore expected that Real president Florentino Perez will make a statement during the lawsuit. Santos also plays a part in the whole affair, as the Brazilian club is said to have received a further €12 million from Barcelona via a shadowy detour, including via an exhibition game between the two clubs. Neymar and Barcelona were already in trouble because of the much-discussed transfer. In 2016, a settlement was reached with the Spanish tax authorities for a total of five million euros. The Barcelona leadership admitted at the time that they had made mistakes with the tax planning surrounding the Neymar transfer.
Neymar elaborated on Real’s interest in mid-2013 in court. “A lot of clubs wanted me, but since I was a kid I always wanted to play for Barcelona. At the last minute I had to choose between Barcelona and Real and it ended up being Barcelona. I really followed my heart.” Neymar exchanged the Catalans in 2017 for PSG, which paid a record amount of 222 million euros. He was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of ten million euros. An actual prison sentence is not plausible, however, because in Spain prison sentences of up to two years are always conditional on the first conviction.