Neymar has attempted to pay the €222million (£198m) fee to release him from his contract with Barcelona – but La Liga have sensationally rejected the payment.
A sports lawyer working for the player, Juan de Dio Crespo, deposited a cheque with the Spanish League, on Thursday morning, but reports say the payment has not been accepted off the back of threats made on Wednesday by La Liga president Javier Tebas that they would reject the money.
Neymar – who has delayed his arrival in Paris until Friday, according to reports in France – is now in a race against time to register with the French league so he can make his debut on Saturday against Amiens. He needs to register a provisional transfer by Friday to make it in time to kick-off PSG’s first match of the season.
Neymar flew to Porto on Wednesday where he had a medical in the presence of PSG’s Portuguese sporting director Antero Henrique.
On the same day, in an interview in AS, Tebas claimed he would not accept the clause because of the doubts over PSG’s financing.
The claim seemed more like the desperate cry of a man whose league is about to lose one of its emblematic players than the claim of someone standing on solid legal ground – but he appears to have followed through on his threat.
A quirk of the Spanish transfer system means that the fee has to be deposited by the player to release him from his contract. In Spain, every player has a buyout clause written into their contracts, with a purchasing club paying the fee to the player and the player then transferring it to La Liga.
PSG had fought against paying the money as a buyout clause to the league because it means releasing all the funds immediately and incurring additional tax. (dailymail)