Florentino Perez has confirmed that Real Madrid made a bid for Neymar earlier than he joined Barcelona.
Neymar left Santos to sign for Barcelona in 2013 in a deal that has proved to be massively controversial. The Catalan membership insist the transfer value just below £50m however Brazilian firm DIS, which owned 40% of the participant’s sporting rights when he was at Santos, declare the cash paid was over £20m greater than that. DIS declare that Neymar, Santos and Barcelona all colluded to conceal the total value of the deal.
The matter has now gone to courtroom, and Real Madrid president Perez was known as to the stand to give proof within the proceedings.
In his assertion, he confirmed that his membership tried to sign Neymar in 2011 and that he is aware of little about what rights DIS had over the participant.
“I don’t know Neymar, I’ve never spoken to him on a personal level. We were interested in signing Neymar about 10 years ago. In 2011, Real Madrid made Santos an offer for Neymar. I believe it was €45m. It’s written in the summary,” he mentioned.
“Players go where they want to go. I think Neymar wanted to go to Barcelona and that’s why he went to Barcelona. The offer in 2011 was €45m, not €60m.
“I do not know or keep in mind if DIS had any rights to Neymar. I keep in mind they despatched us a letter… I do not keep in mind something in any respect. We have supplied all documentation to the summary. I used to be not concerned in something. I suppose we did not reply to the DIS letter as a result of we had nothing to say.
“We did not play a very active role in this negotiation. I have been at Real Madrid for 18 years and all the offers we have made to players have been transparent. All these questions at Real Madrid are dealt with by the sports management. I don’t know anything about what you’re telling me.”