On Tuesday, a Spanish court acquitted soccer star Neymar and his co-defendants in a fraud and corruption trial related to Neymar’s 2013 transfer from Santos to Barcelona. The plaintiff, Brazilian company DIS, had alleged that Neymar, his father, and the former presidents of Santos and Barcelona had deliberately concealed the transfer cost to evade paying DIS its rightful share as a partial holder of Neymar’s player rights.
However, the court stated in its verdict that “there was no evidence of a false contract or an intention to harm DIS.” This outcome was not unexpected, as Spanish state prosecutors had previously dropped all charges during the trial, leaving only DIS’s lawyers to pursue the case.
Initially seeking a five-year prison sentence for Neymar, DIS’s lawyers later reduced their demands to two-and-a-half years following the withdrawal of state prosecutors. This legal victory for Neymar comes shortly after his Brazil team was eliminated from the World Cup by Croatia in the quarterfinals.
The other defendants declared innocent in the case were Neymar’s father (who shares his name), Neymar’s mother, former Santos president Odilio Rodrigues, and former Barcelona executives Sandro Rosell and Josep Bartomeu.
DIS, which owns a chain of supermarkets in Brazil, had claimed rights to receive 40% of a future Neymar transfer when it paid the player’s family 5 million Brazilian reals (then $2 million) in 2009. DIS alleged that it had only received its rightful percentage from the 17 million euros that Barcelona and Santos publicly announced as the transfer fee, while the actual cost was approximately 82 million euros. The court determined that DIS had received 6.8 million euros, corresponding to 40% of the 17 million Barcelona officially paid Santos for the transfer. However, it ruled that all other payments made by Barcelona to Neymar’s family business, N&N, and to Santos in separate contracts were legal. These included a 40-million-euro payment negotiated by then-Barcelona president Sandro Rosell in 2011 to secure Neymar’s future transfer to Barcelona, as well as additional agreements between Barcelona and Santos for a friendly match and the right of first refusal for other Brazilian players.
Neymar’s transfer from Santos to Barcelona in 2013 was marked by significant fanfare, as he was already considered one of the world’s top players at the age of 21. During his time at Barcelona, he contributed to the club winning a Champions League title and other prestigious trophies before eventually moving to his current club, Paris Saint-Germain, in 2017.
It’s worth noting that Neymar’s transfer from Santos to Barcelona also led to legal issues for Barcelona with Spain’s tax office. In 2016, Barcelona paid a fine of 5.5 million euros to settle a separate case brought by tax authorities, acknowledging an “error in the fiscal planning of the player’s transfer” in that settlement.
