Two former FC Barcelona presidents and Paris Saint-Germain superstar Neymar will stand trial next week on fraud and corruption charges, with a potential five-year prison sentence on the cards for the player.
The Brazil talisman will be summoned to court next week when a trial over his transfer to Barcelona from Santos in 2013 gets underway, with an investment company calling for the forward to get five years in jail, while Spanish prosecutors want a two-year prison term for the forward and a fine of €10 million (R178 million), according to the BBC.
Read: Xavi: Barca don't deserve to continue in UCL
Along with Neymar, the defendants in the trial, which begins in Barcelona on Monday, are his parents, former Barcelona presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell, former Santos chief Odilio Rodrigues and the two clubs.
Investment firm DIS claim that the transfer fee that saw him move to Barcelona from Santos was undervalued, seeing them miss out on a lot of money as they owned 40% of the rights to the South American at the time.
Barcelona stated back then that Neymar's switch cost them €57.1 million (R1 billion), with €40 million (R713 million) being paid to his family, leaving the investment firm with a 40% share of the remainder of the fee that was paid to the Brazilian club.
According to Neymar's lawyers, his Neymar family have been charged with "corruption between private individuals" applying to "competition of products and services between companies", whereas Neymar "is not a service or a commodity".
With DIS arguing that the player's sale to the LaLiga giants was well below his real market value, they have requested a five-year prison sentence for him as well as jail time for Rosell and Bartomeu, plus a €149 million (R2.6 billion) fine.
The 30-year-old has denied the allegations before, but lost an appeal in Spain's high court in 2017.
Read: Messi's potential Barca return off?
The lawyers representing Neymar have insisted that the Spanish courts do not have the "jurisdiction to prosecute the Neymar family and their company N&N" as the acts were committed by Brazilian nationals outside of Spain, and also believe the alleged crimes are not punishable in the South American nation.
You must be SIGNED IN to read and post comments.
Click here to register: https://www.snl24.com/auth/signin
