Contents
- Summary of Neymar and his club career
- Who is the Father of Neymar?
- Is Neymar left or right-footed?
- How much does Neymar’s father make from his son?
- The controversies surrounding Neymar’s father
- The controversy surrounding Neymar’s mother Nadine Goncalves
- Neymar’s Rape Allegation
- Neymar’s contract with PSG: How much does Neymar earn a week?
- How much does Neymar make in a day?
- What are the earnings and Net Worth of Neymar?
- Is Neymar a billionaire?
- Has Neymar ever Won the Ballon d’Or?
- Who are Neymar’s girlfriend and son?
Neymar Junior is one of the brightest football stars in the world and he has remained one of the few footballers who have been touted to replace the legendary Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo when their era is finally over.
Neymar, though 28-year-old, has won almost everything in both club and international football from the age group level to the peak of the game. The Brazil international has won multiple league titles in Spain with Barcelona and in France with Paris Saint Germain. He has also won the prestigious UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup. Besides that, he has won the FIFA Confederation Cup, Gold and Silver medals in two different Olympics for Brazil.
Neymar achievements for the clubs he has played for and for his country, have earned him a couple of individual honors which include: FIFA Confederations Cup Golden Ball (2013), La Liga Best World Player (2014-2015), South American Footballer of the Year (2011 and 2012), World Soccer Young Player of the Year (2011) and a host of others.
Summary of Neymar and his club career
Neymar is a Brazilian footballer who was born on 5 February 1992 in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, Brazil. His full name is Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. Just like most South America’s footballers, Neymar discovered his football talent very early in life and his father, Neymar Santos Sr., who is a former footballer, helped him to groom the talent and continued to manage his football career until date.
While growing up on the streets of Brazil, Neymar was a lover of Brazilian street football and played Futsal for fun which is said to have heavily influenced his style of football – speed, skillful movement, passing, penalty techniques, and ability to pass through limited spaces.
Though Neymar started his football training at a club in Brazil known as Portuguesa Santista in 2003, it was at Santos football club that he signed his first professional football career at age 17. It was also at the club that his fame started which attracted interests from multinationals in Brazil that gave him numerous sponsorship deals.
After four years at the club, he joined Spanish La Liga side, Barcelona in 2013 after he has helped Santos to win Copa do Brasil and other numerous football titles.
At Barcelona, Neymar became an instant hit, paring up with Argentine Lionel Messi and Uruguayan Luis Suarez to form one of the dreaded attacks in the history of football code-named MSN (Messi + Suarez+ Neymar). The trio led Barcelona to dominate Spanish football and Europe in the 2014-2015 season, winning FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Champions League, La Liga, and Copa del Rey.
After 4 years at Barcelona, Neymar decided to leave the club to Paris Saint Germain for a world transfer record of €222 million in 2017. As the most expensive footballer in the world, the pressure of giving dividends to the investment of PSG mounted on him for two straight two seasons as he was a subject of controversies on and off the pitch.
Though he has struggled with a couple of injuries since he joined PSG, so far, he has helped the club to win three Ligue 1, two Coupe de France, two Coupe de la Ligue, and one Trophée des Champions. He was voted as the best player in the league in 2018.
In the outgoing 2019-2020 season, Neymar has helped PSG to win the Ligue 1 title for the third consecutive season, also Coupe de France and Coupe de la Ligue.
Neymar Jr ➕ 2⃣0⃣2⃣0⃣ 🔛🏆🏆🏆…
— Neymar Jr Site (@NeymarJrSite) July 31, 2020
▪Ligue 1
▪Coupe de France
▪Coupe de La Ligue#NRSports #Neymar #NeymarJr #PSG #Campeão #Champion #PSG #ParisSaintGermain 🔵🔴 pic.twitter.com/96xs8s4NDn
Who is the Father of Neymar?
Neymar derived his name from his father Neymar Santos Senior who was a footballer who never made it beyond the lower leagues in Brazil. His father’s career was cut short when he had a road accident in his 20s. The injury forced him to retire from football with little or nothing to show for it except a piece of land in his hometown, Mogi das Cruzes.
Neymar’s father was so poor that he could not afford to pay the medical bills for his wife to conduct an ultrasound when she was pregnant with Neymar. The poverty forced senior Neymar to take his family to his mother’s house where they lived in a single room and slept together in the same bed for years.
“Football wasn’t good for me. I wasn’t a happy guy—I quit it at 32 without a single penny,” he said in an interview with SportTV.
Hence, when he discovered that his son was a talented footballer, senior Neymar decided to dedicate all his time to develop his son’s talent. He successfully landed his son his first professional football contract with a Brazilian club Santos in 2008 when Neymar was just 17-year-old. That marked the beginning of a change of lifestyle.
Since then, he has continued to act as Neymar’s father, agent, manager of the footballer’s career and economic dealings. Due to his passion to make junior Neymar a better version of him, he landed his son a deal with Barcelona in 2017 which reportedly worth €88.20 million.
Four years later, he made history with his son as he ensured that Neymar landed a €222 million transfer deal which saw Neymar move to PSG as the most expensive footballer in the history of football.
Is Neymar left or right-footed?
Neymar is regarded as one of the most skillful footballers that are still playing active football. The speed of his dribbling skills and his football technique is arguably second to known.
Though he is mostly used as a left-winger both in the Brazil senior national team and PSG, his strongest foot is the right foot. He can actually use his two legs to move the ball and trick his markers perfectly but any opposing goalkeeper is as good as finished when Neymar shoots with his right foot.
Neymar Frio e Calculista, que frieza na batida de pênalti! ❄️😬#PSGOL pic.twitter.com/9SFYlVeBVO
— neymar jr deprê (@neymarjrdepre) July 31, 2020
How much does Neymar’s father make from his son?
In the first deal with Barcelona, which was a pre-contract deal signed in 2011, senior Neymar reportedly made £8.9 million for himself as Neymar’s agent. When the actual deal with Barcelona was signed in 2013, he reportedly made another £35.8 million.
According to reports, when Neymar extended his 2013 contract with Barcelona to 2021, senior Neymar also earned £23.3 million for himself. However, Neymar couldn’t wait to see through the contract before he moved to PSG. In the PSG’s deal, the footballer’s father reportedly made £19.8 million.
Hence, in the last 9 years of Neymar’s professional football career, his father who doubled as his agent has made a whopping £87.8 million as an agent. This excludes the money he makes off his son whenever the footballer signs endorsement deals.
“You may say, ‘Damn, I’m treating my son like a business.’ Well, of course. Up to a certain point, Neymar is my son, but from the moment he leaves home, he becomes my business,” he said in an interview with Gazeta Press in 2011.
Neymar Jr said: “My father has been by my side since I was little. He takes care of things, my finances, and my family. He is the one who is in charge. He’s the boss.
“There’s always somebody nearby, keeping an eye on me more than watching me.”
The controversies surrounding Neymar’s father
Since Neymar Santos Sr. is regarded as one of the fiercest football agents in the world, he is has made a couple of enemies due to the way he has been managing the affairs of his son.
One of the biggest enemies he has made in his career as a football agent was late Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro, the then president of Santos football club. The man died with the resentment of how Neymar’s father handled the transfer of the Brazilian star from Santos FC to Barcelona.
He was not happy that the club who brought Neymar to the limelight made just €17.1 million from the deal, junior Neymar and other minor part-players in the deal shared about €40 million, while senior Neymar reportedly took the lion’s share.
To show how unhappy he was, Luis Alvaro who died at age 73 wrote a letter which was published after his death, condemning the behavior of Neymar’s father during the negotiations with Barcelona. The letter which was written in Spanish and Portuguese was said to have been written a few weeks before Alvaro’s death.
Another big enemy Neymar’s father has made because of the footballer is one Delcir Sonda, a Brazilian businessman who reportedly owned part of Neymar’s economic rights. He was forced to drag junior Neymar to court because he was completely left out of the equation when the footballer moved to Europe.
The case was later settled out of court just like that of Eduardo Musa, a former close associate of Neymar’s father who has to be paid about €700,000 to abandon his lawsuit against the family.
Joao Henrique Marques, a Brazilian journalist who has been following Neymar’s career from childhood, told Bleacher Report that: “Neymar Sr. has been in charge of his career since he was a child. The first time I spoke to him he was 14. I called his father and he passed the phone to him. Back then, Neymar was still underage, so you obviously understand the situation. But the thing is, that is still pretty much how it works these days.
“Neymar’s interview requests are still submitted to his dad. He controls his friends and also gives his opinion about his relationships.”
“He noticed Neymar’s talent at a very early age. As a former footballer, he saw that phenomenal potential and suddenly started hearing people talking about his son, ‘Your son this, your son that.’ He was aware, though, that the football world can be cruel, so he surrounded himself with few people and made several enemies.
“His strategy has been about money, forming a close-knit entourage, with him taking the reins of everything.”
“Despite his reputation, anyone who speaks to him about sports management is left stupefied with how much knowledge he has gained.”
The controversy surrounding Neymar’s mother Nadine Goncalves
Neymar’s mother Nadine Goncalves has broken up with Neymar’s father long before the footballer became a world football star. The 52-year-old mother of two has been very quiet until April 2020 when the news went viral that she has started dating a 23-year-old gamer, Tiago Ramos.
Neymar approved of the relationship via a comment on his mother’s Instagram post showing her and the young man posing like college lovers. However, the romance did not last long as before April ended, the news went viral that Neymar’s mother and the young gamer had a serious altercation.
According to viral reports, Tiago Ramos landed in the hospital and received 12 stitches. The altercation brought an abrupt end to the relationship and there was no confirmed report regarding the cause of the altercation.
However, the police in Brazil are involved in the case as they invited them to the police station for questioning. As at last check, nothing concrete has developed from the crisis which has left the footballer’s mother single again.
Neymar’s Rape Allegation
Neymar was hit by one of the biggest moments in his life as an international superstar when a woman identified as Najila Trindade, accused the Brazilian international of rapping her in a Paris hotel in May 2019.
Neymar insisted that he didn’t rape the lady but agreed that he had casual sex with her in a Paris hotel after meeting each other via the Internet. The footballer revealed that he paid for her flight ticket to France and everything they did was in mutual consent.
The Brazilian police step into the investigation and pressed rape charges against Neymar a few weeks after. However, the police announced in July 2019 that all the charges of rape against Neymar has been dropped because of a lack of evidence.
Hence, Najila Trindade and her former husband Estivens Alves were accused of lying to the police and attempted to blackmail Neymar. Yet, the woman’s lawyer Cosme Araújo insisted that his client was a Neymar’s rape victim and never attempted to blackmail the football star.
Trindade has even continued to fight back by describing the Brazilian police as corrupt and insisted that there was an altercation between her and the PSG star when they met at the undisclosed Paris hotel.
Since, July, the case has not been heard again as the São Paulo attorney general’s office in Brazil announced that the case has been suspended indefinitely due to lack of evidence.
Neymar’s contract with PSG: How much does Neymar earn a week?
After a beautiful four years career with Barcelona which was almost marred by litigations from Santos FC and other aggrieved parties, Neymar made history as the first and only footballer that joined a club, PSG, for a whopping €222 million on August 3, 2017.
The 5 years deal he signed with the French club which has been earning him a whopping €731,707-per-week, is worth a whopping €36 million-per-year. The deal is expected to expire on 30 June 2020.
Currently, there are talks linking Neymar with a return to Barcelona or Spanish La Liga giants Real Madrid. If the proposed deal pulls through before his current contract with PSG expires, he might end up making more money than this and probably break more transfer records. His current transfer market value is €128 million.
According to the latest reports, PSG is already planning for his possible replacement in case he finally decides to leave. The French champions are reportedly eying Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele amid Barcelona’s interest in Neymar.
How much does Neymar make in a day?
Whether Neymar is playing on the field or not, whether he is injured or fit, and whether Neymar is scoring or not, he is making thousands of euro per day.
Based on his current 5-year contract with PSG, every day of the week, Neymar earns €178,465. This means that at every one hour, the Brazilian football star is entitled to €7,436, and at every minute of the day, he is certain of making €123.93 from PSG which accumulates to his weekly basic salary.
What are the earnings and Net Worth of Neymar?
Neymar is regarded as one of the best footballers in the world. Hence, he is one of the highest-paid footballers in the game. Before June 2022, he would have made over €180 million from PSG.
According to Forbes, Neymar has earned $95.5 million as on the 6th of April 2020 which makes him the 7th highest-earning celebrity in the world, 4th highest-paid athlete in the world, and 3rd highest earning footballer in the world behind Juventus’ Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.
This earning is mostly from his wages and match bonuses from PSG but he makes a whole lot of money from endorsement deals. In fact, according to Forbes, the Brazilian international has made a whopping $25 million from endorsements as of April 2020.
Some of the top brands Neymar is making money from as their ambassador and influencer are Nike, Beats Electronics, DAZN, Electronic Arts, Gillette, Mastercard, Red Bull, and TCL.
Besides the money he makes from PSG, Neymar is the second most followed sportsman in the world behind Cristiano Ronaldo. As at last check, the Brazilian star has over 245 million social media followers – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Hence, he makes a lot of extra income promoting brands via his social media pages.
As it stands, the estimated net worth of Neymar should be over €200 million, 235.6 million in dollars.
Is Neymar a billionaire?
Though Neymar is among the highest-earning athlete in the world, he is yet to hit the billionaire club. His current net worth is estimated to be 235.6 million in dollars. However, the Brazilian lives like a billionaire as his luxurious lifestyle can be compared to any billionaire in the world.
One of his most prominent houses is the one located at the resort of Mangaratiba in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The mansion which has six bedrooms, a pool, and jacuzzi, a tennis court, a helipad, an underground cellar which houses 3,000 wine bottles, is reportedly valued at £7 million.
Also, Neymar owns a private jet, Embraer Legacy 450 jet, which reportedly worth around $25.9 million. Besides that, he is a proud owner of Embraer Phenom 100E yacht valued around $8 million. According to reports, it cost about $120,000 per year to maintain the yacht.
More so, Neymar loves luxurious cars just like how he loves luxurious lifestyles. His fleet of cars is reportedly worth over $2 million. In his luxurious collection of cars, there is a Ferrari 458 Italia, an Audi RS7, a zippy R8 Spyder, a Porsche Panamera Turbo, Volkswagen Touareg and Maserati MC12s.
Has Neymar ever Won the Ballon d’Or?
Though Neymar has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or for a couple of times, he has not been deemed worthy enough to win the most prestigious football award. He came very close to winning it in 2015 when he came 3rd behind Cristiano Ronaldo and the winner of that year’s edition of the 64-year-old award, Lionel Messi.
Neymar has once stressed in an interview that though one of his goals as a footballer is to win the Ballon d’Or, he is not playing football for the award but just to enjoy the game.
“If I don’t win the Ballon d’Or, it’s okay,” he said. “I don’t play football to win the Ballon d’Or, I play football to be happy because I love it because I want to play football. Unfortunately, only one person can win it.
“Of course it is one of my goals winning the Ballon d’Or but I won’t die if I don’t.”
Before this year’s edition of the Ballon d’Or was canceled, a retired Brazil international and a Ballon d’Or winner in 2007, Kaka, said Neymar would have won this year’s canceled edition if he leads PSG to win the club’s first UEFA Champions League title in August.
In the same vein, another former Brazil international, Rivaldo, said in an interview that if Neymar could continue to focus on his football career like he has been doing lately, the 28-year-old Brazilian talisman could win three Ballon d’Or before the end of his football career.
Who are Neymar’s girlfriend and son?
Neymar is a footballer that is known to have had a couple of relationships with numerous models and female celebrities. Among all the relationships the PSG star has had, the only one that produced a child is that which he had with Carolina Dantas.
The model gave birth to Neymar’s only son, Davi Lucca da Silva, on 13 August 2011, a product of their brief relationship in 2010. Though they have gone their separate ways long after the child was born, they are still keeping in touch due to their son.
Since then, Neymar has gone on to date other ladies and have broken up with them. The most recent long term relationship the footballer had was with a 23-year-old Brazilian actress and model Bruna Marquezine.
They reportedly met in 2012 when Marquezine was just a child actress and ended up dating until June 2019 when the relationship eventually failed due to an undisclosed reason.
The most latest woman that has been linked with Neymar is a German media personality and event host, Janin Ullmann. She announced that she is dating Neymar on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2020, with an Instagram post. In the post, Neymar and the German lady could be seen posing like lovers as they took a selfie.
In the caption, Ullmann wrote: “he asked me and I said yes ❤️😍💍happy Valentine day @neymarjr”. Since she has not deleted the Instagram post since then, it is possible that they are still dating each other.
