Barca president insists Neymar deal legitimate

The La Liga giants paid €13.5 million to the Spanish authorities on Monday after being charged with tax fraud in the signing of the Brazil star from Santos.

Sandro Rosell, president at the time, denied any wrongdoing but stepped down wanting to clear his and the club's name.

Bartomeu reiterated that Barca did nothing wrong in luring the 22-year-old forward to Catalonia.

Barcelona admitted Neymar cost €86.2m – not €57.1m as they originally said – after payments to the player and his family.

"Our partners, they have to keep this in mind. What we said some weeks ago about the contract of Neymar was the truth," Bartomeu said on Monday.

"These are the contracts, and we have showed them correctly. We have talked about it.

"I brought the newspaper of the club this month and inside you have two pages dedicated to the contract of Neymar.

"Something that never happened in Spanish and European football, that a club make public all the amounts. They are not more than these ones.

"What we wanted was to bring Neymar and we did everything for it. Even if some teams are not happy with it, he is with us and plays for us, and there are no more numbers than those ones.

"Our partners have to be very sure that we have done everything legal and we have been very transparent. The only thing we did was to bring him to us, that was what our technical staff wanted."

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