The Brazilian star Neymar ended on Monday her 18-month stay full of injuries in Saudi Arabia as her club, Al-Hilal said they had “agreed to end the player’s contract for mutual consent.” “The club expresses his gratitude and thanks to Neymar for what he has provided throughout his career with Al-Hilal, and wants the player to succeed in his career,” said a club statement published on social networks. The former 32-year striker from Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain played only seven times since he joined the club in August 2023, despite a salary reported around $ 104 million a year.
Neymar, the issue of what remains the greatest transfer in the history of football when he joined Paris Saint-Germain in Barcelona in 2017 for a rate of 220 million euros ($ 230 million), joined Al-Hilal in August 2023.
He followed the Superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the lucrative Saudi League.
But two months after his arrival in Riad, a crossed ligament broke on his left knee while playing for Brazil in a World Cup qualifier in October 2023, which kept him out for a year.
He returned to Al Hilal with two brief appearances in October and November, but injured an hamstring and has not played since then. He said he is aiming at the World Cup.
The club coach, Jorge Jesús, said recently: “He can no longer play at the level we are used to. Unfortunately, things have become difficult for him.”
In early January, Neymar said it was aimed at playing in 2026 in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
‘Last shot’
“I know that this will be my last World Cup, my last photo, my last chance and I will do everything possible to play in it,” he told CNN.
While Neymar had been cured by MLS teams in the United States, the reports in Brazil said Santos, the club where Neymar made his name in his career that fades, was in conversations so that he would return to his homeland.
A return to Brazil would probably be the last chance for a player who is the top scorer of all time in his country with 79 goals in 127 games.
At the beginning of his career he was chosen as the heir of Pelé.
After scoring 107 goals in 177 appearances for Santos, he joined Barcelona in 2013, becoming the young star of a team that also presented Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, who swept the title of the Champions League in 2015 by beating Juventus 3-1 in the final in Berlin.
A year later, he scored the winning penalty in a shooting when Brazil won the Male Gold Soccer Medal at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
In 2017, Paris Saint-Germain, owned by Qatar, diverted him from Barcelona with what remains a world record transfer rate of 220 million euros ($ 230 million).
He won five Ligue 1 titles and he and the prolific French forward Kylian Mbappe brought PSG to the final of the Champions League in the 2019-2020 Covid block, but lost to Bayern Munich.
The PSG brought together Neymar with Messi in the French capital, but the trio with MBAPPE could not gelify when personal rivalries were interposed and was pushed at the exit, and Saudi Arabia, by Parisine management in 2023.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from a union feed).
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