Gerard Pique reveals players offered to alter contracts to help Barcelona navigate FFP and sign Neymar
Summer speculation suggested Neymar could return to the Camp Nou
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Your support makes all the difference.Barcelona pushed to sign Neymar from Paris Saint-Germain this past summer, but a deal failed to materialise.
And despite the Brazilian leaving the Camp Nou two years ago, the current Barça squad were keen for him to return, even offering to alter their own contracts to make it happen.
Centre-back Gerard Pique revealed the move on Spanish radio, speaking to El Larguero sports programme on Cadena SER.
Rather than a reduction in salary, Pique says the squad offered to change the terms of when players would be paid certain amounts, to help navigate spending limits within the financial year.
“We didn’t stump up money,” he said. “What we said to the president was whether we could change our contracts because we knew there was a Financial Fair Play issue... so we said to the president, rather than earn something in year one, we could earn it in year two or three or four.
“At the end of the day we want to go along with what the club is doing and if we can help the club, in this case avoiding a Financial Fair Play problem, we’ve got no problem in doing that.
“Rather than reducing our salary it was about finding a formula so that if the club wanted to sign Ney they could.
“At the time they thought it was a good idea, but then other problems cropped up.”
Despite the injury issues he has suffered in his time with Paris, the fact that the squad were willing to go to such lengths to bring Neymar back to Catalonia is a reminder of how highly he is rated at his former club, where he won two LaLiga titles and the Champions League.
Even with that success, and his integral position in the fabled ‘MSN’ attack – also incorporating Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez – Neymar opted to depart for PSG and Pique further revealed that the squad advised against the move.
“We told Neymar, ‘you’re going to a golden prison’. But in football things can happen and you find the door open.
“In football anything can happen and every year just makes that clearer.”
Neymar has again missed games through suspension and injury this season, but has four goals in five Ligue 1 games with PSG, who are already eight points clear at the top of the table. Barcelona similarly sit in first place in Spain’s top flight, one point clear of Real Madrid.
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