OVIEDO, Spain
At his corruption trial on Tuesday, Brazilian football star Neymar da Silva Santos insisted that though he had always wanted to play for FC Barcelona, he played no part in the negotiations that resulted in his 2013 transfer to the team.
Neymar is on trial alongside his parents, two ex-presidents of FC Barcelona, and an ex-head of the Brazilian football team Santos for corruption and fraud surrounding his transfer to the Spanish club.
With just weeks before he’s set to play for Brazil in the Qatar World Cup, Neymar faces two years behind bars in Spain and a possible €10 million ($9.7 million) fine.
Spanish prosecutors and the Brazilian company DIS, which owned 40% of the economic rights to Neymar at the time, argue that FC Barcelona, FC Santos, and the Neymars conspired to cover up the true amount that the Spanish club paid for the player. As a result, DIS says it lost out on millions of euros.
As part of the collusion, Neymar secretly signed a €40 million contract with FC Barcelona in 2011 before he was on the free market, which did not figure into the official transfer price, prosecutors and DIS allege.
After four years with Barcelona, in 2017 Neymar joined Paris Saint-Germain, where he currently plays.
‘Players go where they want’
During the trial on Tuesday, Neymar only agreed to answer questions from his lawyer.
When asked if he was involved in the negotiations to be transferred to Barcelona, he said he had not.
“That was all down to my father, who is always in charge of that. I sign what my father gives me,” Neymar said.
Although other teams were interested in signing Neymar, he insisted that his intention was always to play for FC Barcelona.
“Since I was a child, I wanted to play for Barca, and I followed my heart,” he told the court.
Earlier on Tuesday, Real Madrid President Florentino Perez testified that he recalled making an offer to Neymar but gave no details, and said he could not remember meeting with DIS.
“Players go where they want, and Neymar wanted to go to Barcelona, that’s why he went there,” he added.
