THE CLUB’S DIRECTOR OF FOOTBALL IS IN BRAZIL
GEMMA HERRERO
Barcelona wants to sign Neymar as soon as possible. The Catalan club has stepped up the pace and proof of this is that its director of football, Raúl Sanllehí is currently in Brazil. A deal could be a matter of days if everything goes as Barça hopes.
Real Madrid’s interest has contributed to Barcelona – which was relatively sure it would sign the Brazilian after it forwarded the Brazilian club €10m in 2011 – stepping up its efforts. First of all, Sandro Rosell met with Santos’ vice-president, Odilio Rodrigues last Friday in Madrid. That meeting was also attended by Raúl Sanllehí.
Rosell was criticised for not travelling to London to watch the Basketball semi-final between Real Madrid and Barcelona and the club revealed that the president’s absence was due to an important meeting. After winning La Liga on Saturday, Rosell didn’t want to go into detail, although it was pretty clear: “I can’t say anything else, but I was working for the club”.
The one thing that remains unclear is Neymar’s transfer fee as he still has a year left on his contract at Santos. It’s common knowledge that the Brazilian club wants €50m, but Santos only owns 55% of the player’s rights. In other words, it could finally cost twice that much to sign the star. That’s why Sanllehí is in Brazil, to negotiate the transfer fee face-to-face.
