Brazilian superstar Neymar has left sections of the football world in meltdown with an announcement about his return to boyhood club Santos expected to be made within days.
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Saudi giant Al Hilal on Monday night released a statement to confirm the club had reached a mutual agreement to release the former Barcelona star from his mega-contract.
The Champions League winner shared a message on Tuesday night, saying goodbye to his Saudi Pro League fans.
“To everyone at Al Hilal, to the fans, Thank you,” he posted on X.
“I gave everything to play and I wish we enjoyed better times on the pitch together.
“To Saudi, thank you for giving me and my family a new home and new experiences I now know the real Saudi and have friends for life. I always felt your love and passion for the game. I will be following your journey ahead as a club and a country towards 2034.
“Your future will be incredible, special things are happening and I will always support you.”
Neymar’s deal was reported to have been worth a staggering $215 million (£129m) per-year, The Sun reports.
And after leaving following 18 months at the club, it meant he earned £193.8m in total.
That breaks down to an outrageous $4.1 million (£2.5m) per-week.
Combined with his transfer fee, Al-Hilal effectively paid $452 million (£271m) for Neymar’s single goal and three assists in seven matches.
Al Hilal’s nightmare isn’t even over yet.
Neymar will still pocket $87 million (£51.9m) of the wages he was owed for the remainder of the season, agreeing to give up just 15 per cent – which works out to $13 million (£8m).
That means by the end of the season, his single goal will have cost over $554 million (£322m), while each appearance will have been worth £46m.
If all that wasn’t enough, Neymar also raked in a cool £136m from commercial income, separate to his wage from Al-Hilal.
The former Paris Saint-Germain winger played just seven times since joining the club in August 2023.
Neymar was the subject of what is still the biggest transfer in football history when he joined Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in 2017 for a fee of 220 million euros.
He followed fellow superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the lucrative Saudi league.
But two months after his arrival in Riyadh, he ruptured a cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing for Brazil in a World Cup qualifier in October 2023, which kept him on the sidelines for a year.
He returned for Al Hilal with two brief appearances in October and November but injured a hamstring and has not played since.
Club’s blunt Neymar statement as boyhood fairy tale nears
Al-Hilal’s statement confirming Neymar’s exit was short and sweet.
“The club expresses its thanks and appreciation to Neymar for what he has provided throughout his career with Al-Hilal, and wish the player success in his career,” said a club statement posted on social media.
The decision to release Neymar came after boss Jorge Jesus admitted the player was no longer capable of the required physical demands.
He said: “Neymar can no longer perform at the level we are used to.
“Things have become difficult for him, unfortunately.”
While Neymar had been courted by MLS teams in the United States, reports in Brazil said Santos, the club where Neymar made his name, was in talks for him to return to his homeland.
A return to Brazil would likely be the last chance for a player who is his country’s all-time leading scorer with 79 goals in 127 matches.
Club president Marcelo Teixeira took to Instagram to deliver the message to Neymar on Tuesday night but did not officially confirm the 32-year-old’s return to the club where he first broke through in 2009.
“The time has come, Neymar. The time has come for you to return to your people. To your home, to our beloved club,” said Teixeira.
“Welcome back, Ney boy!… Come and be happy again in the sacred jersey. The Santos nation awaits you with open arms.”
Earlier in January, Neymar said he was aiming to play the 2026 World Cup, to be hosted in the US, Canada and Mexico.
“I know this will be my last World Cup, my last shot, my last chance and I will do everything I can to play in it,” he told CNN.
At the start of his career he was cast as the heir to Pele.
After scoring 107 goals in 177 appearances for Santos, he joined Barcelona in 2013, becoming the young star of a team that also featured Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, which swept to the Champions League title in 2015 by beating Juventus 3-1 in the final in Berlin.
A year later he scored the winning penalty in a shootout as Brazil won the men’s football gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In 2017, Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain prised him away from Barcelona with what is still a world-record transfer fee of 220 million euros ($230 million).
He won five Ligue 1 titles and he and prolific French forward Kylian Mbappe led PSG to the final of the Champions League in the Covid-blighted 2019-2020, but they lost to Bayern Munich.
PSG reunited Neymar with Messi in the French capital, but the trio with Mbappe failed to gel as personal rivalries got in the way and he was pushed to the exit, and to Saudi Arabia, by the Parisian management in 2023.
— with AFP
