PRAIA GRANDE, Brazil – Superstar Neymar has a future at Paris Saint-Germain, his father said on Tuesday after meeting with the club’s president amid rumours that the player wants to quit PSG.
“Neymar already has a future at PSG, Neymar already has a present at PSG,” Neymar Santos Senior told journalists at his son’s charity centre, the Neymar Junior Institute, in Praia Grande, Sao Paulo state.
The Neymars were accompanied by PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who earlier visited the star at his luxury home near Brazil’s coast, where he is recuperating from surgery.
The world’s most expensive player fractured a bone in his right foot on February 25, and faces weeks of recovery following surgery in early March.
Unconfirmed media reports have been swirling in Europe that Neymar has grown disenchanted with PSG, who crashed out of the Champions League to Real Madrid in the last-16 as the forward missed last week’s second leg, and wants to return to Barcelona or even join Real.
But Al-Kehlaifi also sought to pour cold water on the rumours, saying Neymar “is happy, highly motivated and excited to come back as soon as possible”.
Neymar is “doing his best to come back as soon as possible… He’s in good shape.”
Brazilian team doctor Rodrigo Lasmar has said that the 26-year-old – who left Barcelona after PSG paid his €222 million buyout clause last August – will need at least two-and-a-half months, maybe three, to return to action.
Brazil’s national team are hoping he will be back to full fitness in time to help lead them at the World Cup starting in Russia on June 14.