Fresh reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has revealed that the Brazilian superstar striker and playmaker Neymar will be going on trial in Spain on Monday over some of the alleged irregularities which had occurred in his transfer to Barcelona nearly a decade ago.
The 30-year-old, who had been reportedly wearing some sunglasses and a dark suit had also waved to the press as he had arrived with his parents at the Provincial Court of Barcelona at around 9:45 am.
Read Also: Messi And Neymar Snubbed As Balon D’Or Releases Full List
And it has been reported that the high-profile trial is the culmination of a years-long legal saga over his 2013 transfer from the Brazilian club Santos to Barcelona and then Neymar joined Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain in a world record 222 million euro ($214 million) transfer which had taken place in 2017.
He is also one of nine defendants who are on trial on some corruption-related charges and among them are his parents and their N&N company, which also manages his affairs as well and all three are also facing charges of business corruption.
Investigators had begun probing the transfer after a 2015 complaint filed by DIS, a Brazilian company that owned 40 percent of the player’s sporting rights when he was at Santos. Barcelona said the transfer cost 57.1 million euros, but prosecutors believe it was at least 83 million euros.
The club had revealed that it paid 40 million euros to N&N and 17.1 million to Santos, of which 6.8 million was given to DIS, but DIS alleges that Neymar, Barcelona and the Brazilian club colluded to mask the true cost of the deal.
In another report, superstar footballers, Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr who are the iconic duo of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) football club, have been snubbed by the stakeholders as the 2022 Ballon d’Or panel released its 30-man shortlist for the awards this year.
This will also be the first time in a decade that the Argentine international, Messi, will not be included in the shortlist. He also has the records of having won the most Ballons d’Or awards in history.
Despite scoring 11 goals in 34 matches for Paris Saint-Germain last season, he wasn’t included in the list.
His team-mate Neymar is also not on the list. He played just 28 times for PSG last season in an injury-hit campaign.
Meanwhile, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Karim Benzema made the list.