Josep Maria Bartomeu pictured arriving at the funeral ceremony for the late president of the Spanish publishing group Planeta, Jose Manuel Lara, in Barcelona on Monday.
FC Barcelona’s president is in the dock facing a tax fraud case over the handling of Brazilian Neymar and believes Real Madrid are to blame! The club originally said that they signed Neymar for 57.1 million euros and then admitted that they actually paid 86.2 million euros for the ex Santos forward.
Josep Maria Bartomeu believes he is the victim of foul play by Real Madrid as the Spanish authorities accuse both the club and president of fraud to the tune of 2.8 million euros.
Bartomeu believes he has done nothing wrong and told private Catalan TV channel 8TV that he feels Real Madrid are behind it all.
Now those are big words from the president and I don’t know whether it’s a ploy to take the heat off him and the club or try to damage Real Madrid’s reputation – or both.
“The big question here is what’s going on? Neymar had two offers, one from Real Madrid and one from FC Barcelona,” said Bartomeu to 8TV.
“Neymar was playing well a year ago and all of a sudden there was a complaint we had misappropriated funds in the deal. Maybe somebody didn’t like it that he was doing well.”
“Now he’s playing great again and there’s another judicial action. I will not say Real Madrid are behind all this, but Neymar had two offers…”
But Bartomeu insists that the club has done nothing wrong and only paid 57.1 million euros.
“Someone’s gone over the red line. And it’s a line beyond which you have to say, enough. FC Barcelona have done nothing wrong. Just brought Neymar here. We’ll keep saying that the cost was 57 million euros”.
Is it just a ploy by Bartomeu to take the heat off the club or does he have a valid reason to believe that Real Madrid are behind Barça’s woes? What do you think?
