The PSG wielded political reasons to force Neymar to return to Paris

The tension between Neymar Júnior and PSG touched maximum levels last week. The president of the French club, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, sent several intermediaries, in addition to his sports director, Leonardo de Araújo, to raise the level of warnings as the days went by without the father of the soccer player – who is also called Neymar and representative office – will guarantee the return of your child to Paris. In the face of the sustained threat of rebellion, sources of the club’s administration say that Al-Khelaifi came to threaten to marginalize Neymar in the stands, condemning him not to play until he fulfills the contract in 2022. The leader could not tolerate that this crisis damaged more the image of an institution deeply linked to the state of Qatar.

Hearing that from Paris they were ordering his son to immediately interrupt his Brazilian vacation, Neymar Sr. replied a week ago saying that that would be seen. That the PSG not only failed to fulfill the promise made in 2017 when they invited their son to join the project as a flagship, but also betrayed him trying to sell him by all means.

Al-Khelaifi went from disgust to anger when, in full suspense, an agent very close to the player assured him that Neymar was willing to lower his salary to 24 million euros net if he signed for Barcelona, ​​as was his wish. In the PSG, for all the concepts, the star has collected some 47 million euros net per course. The idea that Neymar preferred to charge less in order to leave PSG, where he had been allowed to take his life away from the professional discipline of the squad, infuriated Al-Khelaifi. Outraged to see that the player dilated his confirmation of the return trip, the president sent Leonardo to tell the father that if the boy did not show up on Monday, he would suffer the same fate as Rabiot, whom the club left in the stands for insubordination. last season For salary and without touching a ball. Money was not a problem for PSG. He could afford to keep Neymar paying his salary even if he did not play.

The advisors of the PSG board say that, knowing the threat, Neymar Sr. replied in a sarcastic tone. He came to tell Leonardo that it was not the same to send Rabiot, who charged a million euros, to send Neymar to spend the season quietly at home collecting 47 million while the rest of his colleagues, who charge with luck half, they must strive to get the team ahead. The mutiny would be assured. “In three weeks you will have Mbappé claiming 100 million per year,” the father warned.

After gauging the challenge, they told the club that Al-Khelaifi and Leonardo were left unsettled. Last Wednesday they called again the footballer’s father lowering the level of aggressiveness. This time, they invited the Neymar to travel to Paris to find the solution they all want as soon as possible: a quick and politically acceptable sale. The PSG transferred to the father that the character of the club as an emblem of the sovereign state of Qatar prevented him from seriously compromising the dignity of the institution and this would happen if they sold Neymar for less than 100 million euros after having signed him for 222 two years ago. If he stayed in Brazil longer, his price, they pointed out, would plummet to prevent the operation for political reasons. Qatar can not afford to project an image of incompetence.

Apparently, according to sources of the Parisian club, this was the only reason that convinced the father of Neymar to alter a strategy of rebellion that, according to the negotiating orthodoxy, always benefits the player. The Neymar have understood that the PSG, for the good and for the bad, escapes the codes of football. The ticket back to Paris was the first consequence.