The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, declared this Tuesday as a witness in the trial for the alleged irregularities in the signing of Neymar by FC Barcelona. Pérez has given a capote to the exculpatory thesis and has recognized that "Neymar wanted to go to Barcelona and that is why he went to Barcelona", contrary to what the accusations consider.
The prosecution maintains that the initial payment of 40 million euros from Rosell to the Neymar that ensured the landing of the crack to Barcelona when his contract with Santos expired prevented "other clubs from freely participating in the market for the acquisition of the federative rights of the player". The prosecutor asked the president of Madrid if he knew that to acquire the player's rights he had to pay a penalty of 40 million that he had agreed with Barça and Florentino replied that he did not know.
The Madrid president has acknowledged that the white club was interested in Neymar in 2011 and made an offer of 45 million euros, similar to what Rosell agreed to the footballer's parents. “The 2011 offer was 45 million and not 60”, he stated. "It's been a long time and I didn't participate in the negotiations. I think so, an earlier offer of 30 million was made."
The president of Real Madrid is not aware of having said that nothing was left in writing so as not to violate FIFA regulations. "I've been at Real Madrid for 18 years and all the offers we've made for players have been transparent. All these issues at Real Madrid are handled by the sports management".
Minutes earlier, the former football director of FC Barcelona, Raúl Sanllehí, had acknowledged having reached an agreement with Santos for Neymar for 45 million plus 10 in variables in the summer of 2011. "We shook hands on a Friday, but on Monday They called us to tell us that Madrid had offered five million more. We couldn't accept that, because we had already closed the deal", explained Sanllehí.
From there, Barça decided to negotiate directly with the player's father and representative, Neymar da Silva. In November 2011, both parties signed an agreement to incorporate Neymar in 2014 with a penalty clause for breach of contract of 40 million euros.
In 2013, Barcelona agreed to advance the signing of Neymar by a year and the clause increased to 100 million, which made it unfeasible for Madrid to undertake the signing. Florentino Pérez, however, said he did not remember “if DIS had rights over Neymar. I remember they sent us a letter. I guess we didn't answer because we had nothing to say. We did not have a very active participation in that negotiation," he stressed.
After a ten-minute videoconference statement, Judge José Manuel Del Amo Sánchez fired Florentino Pérez with "I'll let you rest because you were in Paris yesterday." It should be remembered that the president of Real Madrid accompanied Karim Benzema, winner of the Ballon d'Or, at yesterday's gala that was held at the Châtelet theater in the Parisian capital.
