FC Barcelona announcement

FC Barcelona director general Antoni Rossich, acting as the Club’s legal representative, has presented a statement to the Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) concerning the transfer of Neymar Júnior.

Former FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell and a representative of the Club’s auditors, Deloitte, also made declarations in court today.

The FC Barcelona director general, in his testimony before Judge Pablo Ruz, agreed with a previous statement by former president Rosell, that the contract had been correctly drawn up and that there were no tax related motivations, denying any form of contractual manipulation or simulation.

Both the FC Barcelona director general and former Club president Sandro Rosell also confirmed that neither the Club’s vice-president for sport, nor the economic vice-president took any part in the transfer negotiations or in the drawing up of the details of the contract. They both agreed that because of the singular circumstances of the transfer and the exceptional interest in the player shown by other clubs, FC Barcelona needed to act with the maximum discretion and confidentiality.

FC Barcelona confidently expect all of these declarations to help to clarify the fact that the club acted correctly at all moments throughout the transfer process.