Barcelona delay Neymar contract presentation for Olympics

Barcelona have now postponed the official signing and ceremony of Neymar’s new contract. But the club formally say the delay is for timetabling reasons. They also maintained the statement the documents are already ready.

Barcelona delay Neymar contract presentation for Olympics

There were many months of rumours about a move to other clubs. The interested teams were Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United or Real Madrid. But on July 1 Barca announced that Neymar had signed a contract extension. It tied him to the club until the year 2021.

The club statement said that the Brazil star would visit the Catalan capital on July 15. He will be there for a formal presentation. It will be before he went to Rio de Janeiro to play for his country. Brazil is participating in this summer’s Olympic Games.

That visit will now not take place. Neymar is already preparibg for the Olympic football tournament. Blaugrana board member Josep Vives told AS that all the traveling will be pointless. But an event would be held after the tournament.

“We do not want the player to make a return journey in such a short space of time, when he needs to be back in his country on Monday,” Vives said. “The event we will do later, the documents are already signed.”

Audiencia Nacional Judge Jose de la Mata rejected a criminal case last week. The prosecution was on behalf of third-party investors DIS. They claim they had been cut out of the controversial transfer deal. It brought Neymar to Barca from Santos back in summer of 2013.

Audiencia Nacional chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza told news Agency EFE that he did not agree with the De la Mata’s decision. He protested that an appeal is being prepared.