Let’s say you’re one of the richest and most powerful clubs in the world, but you’ve been hit by a two window transfer ban. What you do think you’re going to do once that ban has been lifted and you then have extra cash reserves to spend? That’s right, make a big name splash signing.
So who could that be for Chelsea? It would have be to a global superstar who badly wants out of his current club. Sounds like Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar to me, so this report, from Spanish outlet Don Balon, certainly makes a lot of sense in theory.
Of course, this is a transfer rumor, so take it with a grain of salt, plus it involves Neymar so who knows what could happen.
Also, we’re still a ways off from when this transaction could actually conceivably occur, so a lot of externalities might get in the way.
Still, Don Balon writes of “an irreproachable offer of 210 million euros, practically the same thing that they paid Barça just over two years ago for him.”
Neymar has been the most expensive player in history, at €222 million, since 2017. The next closest is his own PSG teammate, Kylian Mbappe, who moved over from Monaco the next summer for €135 million. The Brazilian’s potential move back to Barcelona or potentially to Real Madrid this past summer didn’t come close to happening, and now the controversial winger is disliked by many of his own fans.
PSG spent big, mostly on him and the aforementioned Mbappe, in a bid to finally win the UEFA Champions League tournament, and right now it seems like that plan is not going to come to fruition.
It’s clear that the Neymar in PSG experiment failed, so it is time for both parties to move on, but he is limited in terms of destinations due to his outsize salary and astronomical transfer fee.
As NBC Sports points out, Chelsea might struggle “to fit in Neymar’s wage demands when it comes to financial fair play.”
The DB reports says that N’Golo Kante could be sold to Real Madrid, in order to help balance the books. Another thing to consider in the potential deal, (and don’t you just love international breaks, which gives us the free time to over-analyze things like this?) is the baggage Neymar brings.
Yes, his big brand boosts business, but there’s plenty of off-the-pitch drama to deal with when you have a galactico of this magnitude. You have to consider how to square this circle, given the youth movement underway at Stamford Bridge.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.