The Supreme Court of Spain confirmed the acquittal of Brazilian striker Neymar and the other defendants accused of irregularities in his transfer to Barcelona in 2013, as had already been determined by the Barcelona Provincial Court following the trial held almost four years ago.
In a statement released this Wednesday, the Spanish Supreme Court considered that “the proven facts reflect the inconsistency of the accusation”, which was made exclusively by the Brazilian company DIS, holder of 40% of Neymar’s federative rights when he was still a young Santos prospect.
“There was no corruption in the negotiations, nor undue fraud. Neither on the part of the player, his representatives, nor Barcelona. Everything was due to a sporting decision by the club, which wanted to secure his signing and then decided to bring it forward,” the note added.
The STF’s decision, dated April 16, thus confirms the decision of the Barcelona Provincial Court, which had already acquitted the player — now 34 years old and back at Santos — his parents, the former presidents of Barça, Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, and a former manager of the São Paulo club, in December 2022.
The beginning of the legal saga dates back to 2015, when DIS appealed to the Spanish court accusing the Catalan club, the player and his circle of deceiving it to hide the real value of the controversial transfer.
DIS, which received €6.8 million (R$40 million) in the negotiation, also accused the defendants of not having been informed about an alleged exclusive contract signed in 2011 with Barça, which would have distorted free competition to guarantee the signing of the striker.
But neither the Public Prosecutor’s Office — which ended up dropping the charges in the final phase of the trial — nor the judges considered the actions criminal.
After the high-profile trial held in Barcelona in 2022 —in which Neymar, then a Paris Saint-Germain player, also testified—, the Barcelona Provincial Court acquitted the defendants, but DIS decided to appeal.
