French football journalist Julien Laurens says the “biggest paradox of all” is that Neymar “in a way left Barcelona not to be in Messi’s shadow and now he is almost begging for them to play together”.
Brazil international Neymar left Barca for PSG in 2017 for a world record £200m, despite the Spanish club not wanting to sell him. The belief at the time was he wanted to step out of Messi’s shadow and be the main man at another team, enabling him to win Champions Leagues and Ballons d’Or.
But he has not achieved any of that success and publicly tried to rejoin Barcelona last summer.
Laurens says this situation is different now.
“The question he was asked is important, ‘would you like Messi to join you at Paris?’ So it’s not Neymar saying he wants to play with Messi and they could go anywhere,” he said.
Laurens believes that they would have to sell 21-year-old France striker Kylian Mbappe and let 32-year-old Argentine Angel di Maria leave to afford Messi.
“Financially you can’t have Messi, Neymar, Mbappe,” he said. “It’s impossible. I’m not sure you can have Messi, Neymar and Di Maria, who is out of contract at the end of season. So maybe let Di Maria go, sell Mbappe to Real Madrid and then bring Messi in.
“But there are a lot of financial figures – financial fair play – they’d have to work out. But a lot of people in Paris are starting to dream.
“I think if Neymar asks for the owners to sit and listen to him, he will. It’s still a long way away.”
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