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During the night from Friday to Saturday, the clubs "Santos" and "Barcelona" reached an agreement on the sale of 21-year-old forward Neymar, as reported by the newspapers "Sport" and "El Mundo Deportivo" in Catalonia.
Indeed, "Santos" club announced that they received two offers for their leader, which they passed on to the player himself to consider. However, the mentioned press releases unanimously claim that Neymar will choose the current Spanish champions.
Both clubs have not yet provided any official information about the possible agreement, but journalists claim to have already learned preliminary details of the deal.
It is believed that "Barcelona" will pay 23-25 million euros for Neymar and will also commit to playing several friendly matches with the Brazilian team. According to unofficial information, the Catalan club will also receive the right of first refusal to sign contracts with three young academy players from "Santos".
Neymar is expected to sign a five-year contract with the Catalan club and earn around 7 million euros per season.
Previously, it was announced that "Barcelona" would also have to negotiate with the company "DIS", which owns 40 percent of the rights to Neymar, and the investors group "Teisa", which owns 5 percent of the player's rights. However, according to "El Mundo Deportivo," some lawyers argue that this is not necessary.
In the event that "Barcelona" agrees on a financial compensation with "Santos", which owns 55 percent of Neymar's rights, the Catalans would not need to negotiate a contract with either "DIS" or "Teisa" since federal rights to the player would belong to the current Spanish champions.
As sports lawyer Juan de Dios Crespo affirms, there is a precedent for this - in 2006, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano moved to London's "West Ham United" in similar circumstances.
At that time, the English team reached an agreement with the "Corinthians" team for the acquisition of players, but the "hammers" did not negotiate a deal with the company "Media Sports Investment", which held a partial rights to both players. At that time, controlled by Iranian businessman Kia Joorabchian, insisted that C. Tevez should leave the "Corinthians" team only when a ransom of 69 to 83 million pounds was paid for him, but nothing came of it.
Catalan newspapers claim that Neymar's official statement regarding his future is just a formality and should be made in the near future.
