Neymar has signed a two-year deal with Al Hilal, who have also made attempts to sign Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe from PSG this summer. According to Sky Sports News' Kaveh Solhekol, Neymar will earn six times the amount he was on at PSG.
Sources close to PSG, who have been open to selling Neymar for the past three windows, say the club are set to receive up to £86.3m for a player that cost them a world-record £200m from Barcelona in 2017.
PSG see this as the end of their 'Galactico' era. Messi and Neymar are now gone and Mbappe has been brought into line.
Neymar is a great player and loved by many fans for what he can do on the pitch but there were also a lot of injuries and countless off-field distractions.
It was always likely that Neymar would move this summer, especially after the PSG Ultras demonstrated outside his family home in May.
Selling Neymar is another sign that PSG are focused on FFP - through raising revenues and reducing costs.
Replacement signings have all been younger, hungrier and on less generous contracts.
PSG want to be a sustainable club with a core of French players. They want to develop players rather than just sign ready-made stars. The average age of half the squad is now under 23.
Ultimately, Neymar will always be remembered as one of PSG's best ever players, but he never really fulfilled his potential in Paris - with too many injuries and no Champions League title.
The transfer also means PSG can take Neymar’s salary, which was worth £25m annually until 2027, off the books. They are tightening the belt to comply with Uefa’s new financial fair play regulations, which will cap spending on wages, transfers and agents’ fees at 70% of a club’s revenue while restricting losses to €60m over three years. Last year PSG were fined £56m for breaching the outgoing FFP regulations, although £47.5m of that sum was suspended.
Although Neymar scored 118 goals for PSG he did not help land them the Champions League trophy their owner, Qatar Sports Investments, has sought. PSG are keen to move on from the era of “galáctico” spending that marked their past decade and sometimes provided unwelcome off-pitch distraction. They have placed a renewed focus on blending younger additions with French talents. A hectic summer of arrivals has seen Ousmane Dembélé, Hugo Ekitike, Milan Skriniar, Marco Asensio, Lee Kang-in, Manuel Ugarte and Gonçalo Ramos among those signed. Sergio Ramos, 37, is another veteran to have departed.
Neymar’s departure means Kylian Mbappé will be the only member of last season’s feted front three to remain at the club. Mbappé’s future looked unclear when he was left out of the Lorient game and barred from training with the senior squad, the club holding a firm line after he appeared ready to run down his contract and depart – almost certainly for Real Madrid – for free next summer. A breakthrough over the weekend led to Mbappé’s reintegration: discussions over a new deal are advancing and, assuming it is signed, PSG will not stand in his way if he wishes to depart in 2024.
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