Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo is carrying news today that Barca’s heavily beleaguered president Josep Maria Bartomeu is now trying to take matters into his own hands regarding the Neymar signing. The intense operation has the supposed support of the president himself and the wholehearted support of the fans, Leo Messi and Luis Suárez.
In the preceding episode of last year’s earlier saga that saw Barcelona being ‘very close’ to bringing the controversial and colourful Brazilian back to the Camp Nou, president Bartomeu vociferously claimed then that ‘he will fight until the end’ to bring Neymar back, according to reports from Sport.
Other reports simultaneously claimed that ‘if Bartomeu decides to not bring Neymar, he will face problems with the current dressing room’ at that time.
Cuatro reports that Bartomeu’s latest proposal for the Brazilian was to include Griezmann and Dembélé in the deal, allegedly.
Momentarily it appears that there are two possible ways for Bartomeu to try and remove the heavy millstone hanging from his already stretched neck and he is said to be dead determined to achieve both – renewing Messi’s contract above all else as his primary mission, and then pray hard to the football gods that he can move heaven and hell to bring Neymar back to the Camp Nou right before the upcoming elections, even though he is not eligible to run again for president after having served two terms in that capacity.
Coach Setién, on the other hand, has realistically proffered his sincerest view on the matter and sees the operation as being ‘financially difficult’, alluding obviously to Barca’s financial situation at present.
Neymar himself has been in contact with Barça 5 times over his personal desire to return to the Camp Nou and leave his Parisian club. His father had even taken it upon himself to speak directly to Bartomeu last Christmas and sent him the request of his son who he said harboured regrets about leaving Barça, according to reports from El Mundo.
Add to this developing conundrum the fact that PSG has just administered a last minute coup de grace tryst and offered Neymar a new five-year contract with a salary of 38 million euros a year to boot, and we have a whole new ball game going altogether with the summer window looming right around the corner.
It’s left to be seen where in tarnation Neymar is finally going to end up, considering the current deplorable economic environment that’s suffocating in the throes of the snarling coronavisus pandemic that’s gotten not only the entire international arena of sports, but the whole world in its vice-like coils.