Barcelona vice-president: Neymar to blame for high transfer fees

Barcelona vice-president Jordi Mestre has identified the reason behind the increasing transfer fees in European football: former Blaugrana star striker Neymar. The vice-president believes that Neymar played "cat and mouse" with his club before the move to Paris Saint-Germain and from there things escalated to today's unbelievable transfer fees. Neymar became the most expensive player in the history of football last summer when he moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for 222 million euros. "We would have saved a lot of money and a lot of media noise," said Mestre. "What hurt me the most was the way it happened." The Brazilian forward had just signed a new contract with Barcelona in July 2016 and got himself a renewal bonus worth 8.5 million euros. Mestre said: "If he came to us and said, 'I want to go', we would have reached an agreement. What you can't do is rock the boat. He told us nothing. If he had done, PSG would have been able to buy him for less money and it would have cost us less to sign players too." In fact, Barcelona had to pay huge sums of money after Neymar's departure: almost 100 million pounds for Borussia Dortmund's Ousmane Dembele and 142 million pounds on Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho. Neymar insisted that he did not join Paris Saint-Germain for the money, but he did make an official complaint to FIFA against Barcelona for a loyalty bonus that the Catalan club refused to pay him. That bonus was worth 23 million pounds and vice-president Mestre explains why they did not pay up: "It arrived at a point where we saw where things were going, so we told him we would not pay his contract renewal loyalty fee." Barcelona are currently 11/2 at Bet365 to win the Champions League this season.