Barca Blame Neymar For Transfer Fee Rise

The war of words between Barcelona and Neymar continued with vice-president Jordi Mestre claiming the Brazilian’s dishonesty when leaving the club is the sole reason for the surge in transfer fees over the last six months.

Neymar left Barca in August when Paris Saint-Germain paid his release clause, making him the world’s most expensive player at €222 million.

As a knock-on effect, the Catalan side will end up spending €300m on Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho if all the add-ons are fulfilled, while the cost of players around Europe has spiralled.

Mestre says the price of players could have been contained, at least for now, if Neymar had been honest with the club rather than playing “cat and mouse.”

“What hurt me the most was the way it happened,” he told Diario Sport. “We were all on tour talking with him and his father, and they were not transparent.

“If he came to us and said, I want to go, like Cesc [Fabregas], Pedro [Rodriguez], Alexis [Sanchez] and [Javier] Mascherano, we would have reached an agreement.

“What you can’t do is rock the boat. He played cat and mouse with us. He told us nothing. If he had done, PSG would have been able to buy him for less money and it would have cost us less to sign [replacements], too.

“What Neymar’s behaviour created was the market inflation. We would have saved a lot of money and a lot of media noise.”

When Barca realised what was going on, they decided to withhold the second half of the bonus they were due to pay Neymar for the contract renewal he signed at Camp Nou at the end of 2016.

Source: ESPN FC