Neymar's Statement To His PSG Teammates Shows He Is Desperate To Reunite With Barca

Neymar reportedly revealed to his close teammates at Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) he wants to return to FC Barcelona.

Neymar is understood to be regretting his move to PSG ever since his first season in Paris in 2017 despite all the efforts from the Ligue 1 side to provide him with everything he needs. In the middle of the pre-season in 2017, PSG announced they had signed the Brazilian playmaker for a record fee of a whopping $250m.

It was recently reported Neymar, whose contract is due to expire in 2022, has rejected PSG’s latest contract renewal offer of $112m that would see his deal extend beyond 2022. Despite three straight Ligue 1 titles under his belt, Neymar has reached a stage where he is freely expressing his feelings to his close colleagues, even if it is about leaving their team. “I want to go to Barca,” Neymar has told his teammates, as reported by the Spanish media outlet, Mundo Deportivo.

Last summer, Barcelona came close to re-signing Neymar after they had offered PSG $146m along with two players, Ivan Rakitic and Jean-Clair Todibo. The French side rejected the offer despite the Catalans even adding Ousmane Dembele later on to the deal. Ahead of the upcoming summer market, PSG have already made it clear if Barcelona want to sign Neymar, the deal cannot include other players and the Catalans will have to pay Neymar’s massive transfer fee of $196m in cash.

Even though Neymar has been Barcelona’s top target for a while now, they cannot afford $196m, let alone in cash. While they were already suffering from a financial crisis, the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has made their situation further worse.

Neymar has time and again made his ambitions clear about returning to Spain. Barcelona can evoke Article 17 of Fifa transfer regulations, which allows a player to urge a contract termination amount to be set for his transfer. However, the La Liga champions have decided not to trigger that because that would potentially harm their relationship with PSG for any future transfers.

Earlier, Neymar’s agent Wagner Ribeiro had also said he does not see his client moving back to Barcelona this summer. If Neymar desperately wants to return to Barca, there is someone back at Nou Camp, who is waiting to have him back as well and he is none other than captain Lionel Messi. On any given chance in media, Messi has expressed he wants to see Neymar back to Nou Camp as he believes the squad needs someone like him to once again return to winning ways at the Champions League, a trophy they have not won since 2015.