The sword of Damocles that right now hangs over the head of Josep Maria Bartomeu has a name: Neymar . The president of the Catalan club wants to avoid at all costs that the Brazilian crack, as it happened two years ago, escapes him again. A leak that, in this case, would be much more harmful than the one he starred in to enroll in the PSG . Seeing him in the Real Madrid shirt would be, for many, something impossible to overcome. And the top Barca leader knows. Very good.

Unlike an Antoine Griezmann who has a certain resentment for the scare of the Barca wardrobe for his fright of last year, for saying "no" at the last moment and for the ways, Neymar has the approval of all Heavy weights Starting, of course, for a Leo Messi who has always received him with open arms when the Brazilian, perhaps for that of the saudade, escaped from Paris to step on Barcelona again. His stage in the PSG has already reached its end. The insults of the radicals of the Parisian club, the same ones that idolized him when he was officially presented by the entity that presides over the Qatari Nasser Al-Khelaïfi , mark a point of no return.

For now, three key figures for the operation were traveling to Paris this Tuesday: Javier Bordas , a manager assigned to the sports area of ​​Barça; Eric Abidal, technical secretary of the Barca club; and André Cury , intermediary and advisor of the Barcelona football entity. Its objective was to meet officially with the PSG, once the 'Neymar case' has become entrenched in such a way that its continuity seems little less than impossible, to know first-hand the intentions of the Parisian club regarding the transfer of the soccer player. The former Barça player, for now, has already made it clear that he does not intend to play again with the French team. Nor does he seem to be very worried about his situation: he traveled to Portugal last Monday to attend a concert.

The goal of Barça when negotiating the signing of Neymar is very clear: that the economic amount to invest right now in the operation is as low as possible. Not surprisingly, the Barca entity has already thrown the house out of the window this summer with absolutely multimillion-dollar operations, such as the arrivals of Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong , to reinforce the squad of the first football team, or that of Nikola Mirotic , the big star of the new Svetislav Pesic project in the basketball section. Therefore, two options are being considered in the club environment chaired by Josep Maria Bartomeu. On the one hand, a transfer, which would include players such as Philippe Coutinho or Ivan Rakitic, who was already in the orbit of the PSG last summer, plus a sum of between 60 or 80 million euros. On the other, an assignment with mandatory purchase option. The formula that, in fact, used the Parisian team to get hold of Kylian Mbappé the same year he incorporated the Brazilian.

Josep Maria Bartomeu is in the final stretch of a mandate that will end in the summer of 2021 and, according to the statutes, cannot then be submitted for re-election. That is why it seems entirely determined to leave a good memory of its passage through the entity. The PSG, however, has been closing in band before the possibility of converting the operation that would take Neymar back to Barca in a kind of change of stickers. First of all, what the French team wants is to make a box. And, if possible, recover those 222 million euros that he deposited in summer 2017 to pay the Brazilian termination clause.

However, the objective of the French team, given the devaluation that the player has suffered in his journey through the Park of the Princes, seems little less than impossible. His name has fallen from both the list of ten nominees for The Best and the podium of the Golden Ball in the last two years. And in the last World Cup, that of Russia, in the Brazilian team highlighted above him a Philippe Coutinho who, despite everything, has not achieved in the Barca team the expected performance of him. Not in vain yours is, so far, the most expensive signing in its history. Your passage through the Camp Nou, however, can be ephemeral.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Neymar
  • PSG
  • Coutinho
  • Paris
  • Antoine Griezmann
  • Russia
  • Real Madrid
  • Portugal
  • Nikola Mirotic
  • Leo Messi
  • Ivan Rakitic
  • Jong Frenkie
  • Golden Ball
  • sports
  • football

FútbolBale and Coutinho, with no way out

PremierThe Premier puts the brake on its investment in signings

LaLiga SantanderMessi does not reach San Mamés