“Neymar’s arrival was the start of the problem, because everything afterwards was inflated due to making an exorbitant payment for a player who had just arrived,” said Eduard Romeu, FC Barcelona’s economic VP.
The Brazilian star joined from Santos in 2013, and apparently, there was concern that his salary was so big for a player who had just arrived to Europe. However, he was possibly the biggest rising star in the world at the time.
Paris Saint-Germain would pay his release clause of 222 million euro in 2017, but what should have been a good thing economically, turned out to be the opposite.