Barcelona star Neymar up before judge over tax fraud
04.02.2016 21:00
The 23-year-old striker has ALSO been charged in his native Brazil with tax evasion and forging documents in connection with his £62m move to Barcelona in 2013.
Neymar's father Neymar da Silva Santos, Barcelona's club president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his predecessor Sandro Rosell, have all been charged by the Brazilian authorities.
Brazilian courts have frozen $47m (£33m) of his assets pending the outcome of the case.
It is alleged they fiddled the figures to avoid paying a huge amount of tax on the transfer when the player was signed from Santos in Brazil.
Neymar, who has denied any wrongdoing, appeared in court in Madrid yesterday in connection with a Spanish investigation into the alleged fraud.
If convicted Neymar is unlikely to go to prison but the scandal has cast a cloud over his career.
It is thought he is keen to leave Spain as a result of the investigation and he might be open to linking up with his former boss, Pep Guardiola, who is taking over as Manchester City manager in the summer.
Barcelona says they paid €57m (£43m) for Neymar in 2013 but investigators argue the fee was closer to €83m (£62m) and the club concealed part of the deal.
Neymar spent 90 minutes answering questions from a Spanish judge on Tuesday.
His father, who acts as his agent, arrived at court with his son on Tuesday evening.
The Spanish case was brought by Brazilian third-party investment fund DIS, which owned 40% of the Brazilian player's sports rights.
DIS alleges it lost out financially, receiving only €6.8m (£5.1m) of Mr Santos's €17m (£12.8m) signing-on fee.
Neymar is also accused of dodging income tax by setting up a special company to handle his image rights.
The prosecution claims the Brazilian state was cheated out of 55% of the money which should have been paid.
South American football expert Tim Vickery told the BBC: "It is very early stages. The prosecutors claims will go to a judge who will decide if there is a case to answer or not. At the moment Neymar is not formally a defendant."
Neymar has scored 47 goals in 77 games at Barcelona and has been part of their mesmeric trinity of forwards, along with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez.
But his international career was blighted when he was injured during the 2014 World Cup and without him Brazil crashed out, losing 7-1 to Germany on a catastrophic night in Rio.
Manchester United are known to be big admirers of Neymar and last month the Daily Star Online reported that Barcelona had lined up Chelsea's Eden Hazard to replace him if he went to Old Trafford.
(dailystar.co.uk)
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