5 facts you may not know about Neymar
He's considered the third best footballer in the world, the second most marketable athlete in the world and the best Brazilian talent to come into the sport since the great Pele. Neymar is everything a superstar is. He's young, he's bloody talented and he scores goals when he feels like.
At Barcelona, it's the perfect environment for him to flourish. He's got the likes of Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi teaching him the ropes of being a top level professional footballer and he's so far lived up to their expectations having contributed heavily in all of their trophy wins these last couple of years.
But there are some aspects to Neymar that you might have overlooked or some facts about him that you didn't know, we're here to clear all of those blank spaces.
Here are five facts about the ridiculously talented Brazilian you didn't know about:
#5 He was responsible for a Barcelona President’s resignation
Neymar said he always ‘had a dream to play in Europe’ and that dream came true when three clubs – reportedly Barcelona, Real Madrid and English Premier League side Chelsea – all fought for his signature in 2013.
Ultimately, he chose his current club Barcelona, signing a five-year contract with the transfer fee initially disclosed at €57.1 million. He became one of the most expensive transfers ever from a South American club to Europe but not everything ended on a good note.
In 2014, when Spanish tax authorities caught word that Neymar’s transfer to the Catalan club wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed, a hearing was called. The prosecutor’s office in Madrid demanded all the appropriate paperwork from the club about his transfer and when it did arrive, it created shockwaves both within the club and the Spanish football league.
The documents revealed that Neymar had reportedly cost Barcelona a whopping €86.2 million; these irregularities in the paperwork forced then-Barcelona President, Sandro Rosell to resign from the club forcing Vice-President Josep Maria Bartomeu to take over.