The reasons why Neymar’s Barcelona transfer collapsed
Neymar’s move to Barcelona ultimately faltered on Ousmane Dembele’s “ludicrous” wage demands.
Expected to have been the huge move toward the part of the bargain window, the Brazilian’s exit from Paris Saint-Germain eventually demonstrated too huge to draw off. The 27-year-old was “urgent” to come back to Spain, however, neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid had the assets to coordinate the £200m-in addition to value the French heroes would have needed.
This implied any arrangement was subject to players going the other way, and was likewise where it separated. With Barca’s assets so extended they expected to send three players to coordinate the value – and furthermore to bring down their compensation bill – both Ivan Rakitic and Jean-Clair Todibo had consented to go to PSG, yet Dembele did not.
Aware of how important he was to any deal, the French forward’s camp set high financial terms that both clubs were unwilling to meet. This made a deal impossible.
It is understood Neymar’s camp was already attuned to the difficulty of a successful negotiation this late in the window – which did raise questions among some sources about how serious Barca really was – and that there was a change of attitude over the last few weeks. The Brazilian made it clear he would be willing to knuckle down with PSG.