FC Barcelona has been working for quite some time on the sigining of Santos FC superstar Neymar da Silva. The Brazilian is one of those very few players who can make the difference at any moment of the game, and Barça’s scouting team have matured a complex plan to bring the player to the Camp Nou without jeopardizing the club’s finances.
As reported on Mundo Deportivo newspaper, Barça has not denied having a “firm commitment to purchase the player for 40 million euro, with a down payment of 10 million euro made last season”, showing thethat the arrival of Neymar may just be a question of months.
The signing of Neymar could be eased by other parallel operations including the sale of Bojan Krkic and Ibrahim Afellay, respectively playing for AC Milan and Shalke 04, but whose rights are still owned by Barcelona.
The club may have an extra 32 million euro to finance the signing, in addition to a multimillion euro clause if the player doesn’t end up playing at the Camp nou.
The breakdown of those 32 million is rather simple. To start with, the club’s business plan for the current 2012-2013 season budgeted an investment of 40 million: The club ended up spending ‘only’ 33 million, paying 19 million to get Alex Song from arsenal and 14 million to get Spanish International Jordi Alba from Valencia CF. And although Barça did not sell anyone, thus meaning no money income from transfer fees, the club now has 7 million euro to be invested next summer to bring Neymar to Spain.
In addition to those 7 million saved in the 2012-2013 budget transfers, the club will aim at getting 25 million euro in transfers by selling both Bojan and Afellay. 15 million is the figure agreed between Barcelona, Rome and AC Milan for the transfer of Bojan to the club ‘Rossoneri’ in 2013.
The ‘operation Afellay’, successfully playing on loan for Schalke 04, could bring 10 million euro to the club Culé. The german club has already expressed his desire to sign the Dutch International.