Neymar tells PSG he wants to leave this summer
By Story Agencies, August 8, 2023Neymar has informed Paris Saint-Germain that he wants to leave the club this summer.
Ideally, he would like to return to Barcelona, but it is difficult to see how they can afford him because of their financial problems.
He has three years left to run on his Ksh4.5 billion-a-year contract. There remains a question over whether he is jumping or being pushed.
At 31, he is not thought to be a key player for new head coach Luis Enrique as he builds a new side. PSG have been open to selling him in order to focus on building a younger, hungrier team.
Chelsea discussion
There were discussions with Chelsea in January. It has been a turbulent summer in Paris with Lionel Messi leaving and the high-profile standoff with Kylian Mbappe.
The club did not comment on the matter when approached by Sky Sports News, but it is understood that the Brazil superstar, who is under contract until 2025, has yet to formally communicate his intention to leave to the club’s executives.
The club is resigned to either selling France striker Mbappe this summer or losing him for nothing next summer when he will be out of contract.
Messi left the club earlier this summer to join Inter Miami, and if Neymar and Mbappe follow him out of PSG, it will well and truly mark the end of an era.
The club is trying to shake off what their president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, has previously described as their “bling bling” image of the past and work to develop more players organically rather than bring in top-of-the-range superstars.
World record fee
Neymar was arguably the epitome of the old approach, with PSG smashing the world transfer record to sign him from Barcelona in 2017 for 36.4 billion, at the time.
He has won France’s Ligue 1 title five times since joining PSG but has failed to add to the single Champions League crown he won with Barca in 2015.