Neymar's Transfer Saga: The Choice Between Barcelona and Real Madrid
Wagner Ribeiro leans back into the past and pulls out a sliding-doors moment in modern football: Neymar, 2013, and a contract that was almost signed in white, not blaugrana.
According to the former agent, the Brazilian was “one step away” from joining Real Madrid before Barcelona finally won the race. In Ribeiro’s mind, the consequence of that twist is clear: had Neymar chosen the Bernabeu, he would have a Ballon d'Or on his shelf.
Madrid’s deal, Barcelona’s player
Neymar’s move from Santos to Barcelona in 2013 was already one of the landmark transfers of the era. A generational Brazilian talent, courted for years, finally landing in Europe with two Spanish giants locked in a long and expensive tug of war.
Ribeiro, who had guided Neymar through his adolescence and early professional years at Santos, says the battle was effectively over in Madrid’s favour. The hard work had been done. The personal terms, the structure, the legal framework.
“Everything was agreed with Florentino,” he recalled in an interview with GE Globo. Real Madrid’s lawyers were in São Paulo. The outlines of a galáctico move were on the table. All that was missing, he says, was a single green light.
“All we were missing was one condition: that Santos give its approval.”
From Ribeiro’s perspective, Real Madrid held an “absolute advantage” in the race. He pushed for it. He admits it openly. He wanted Neymar in white, in that stadium, in that spotlight. For the money, for the prestige, for the platform. For everything.
But there is a line he insists was never crossed.
“I wanted him to go to Real Madrid, of course I wanted that. Because of everything. But it is not the agent who decides, it is the player.”
The player chose Barcelona.
An intruder at the celebration
Ribeiro still boarded the plane to Spain. He still travelled with Neymar to Barcelona for the unveiling that would become part of the club’s modern history. Yet as he tells it, his presence that day came with a cold edge.
“When I travelled on the same plane with Neymar to Barcelona, to attend his unveiling ceremony, they sat me down as if I were an intruder,” he said. He was in the room, but not really part of the party. “I did not take part in the celebration, but stayed in one of the corners.”
The choice had been made. The Camp Nou, not the Bernabeu. The trident with Lionel Messi and later Luis Suárez, not a new act in the Real Madrid galáctico saga. For an agent who had invested so much energy into the Madrid path, it was a strange, almost alienating moment.
Yet there is no bitterness in how he describes Neymar’s Barcelona years.
“He played a lot alongside Suarez, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta... There were only the great stars there. And he won everything. And there is no regret.”
It is hard to argue. Neymar’s time at Barcelona delivered trophies, a Champions League, and some of the most devastating attacking football of the decade. The what-if lives on only in conversation.
Ibiza, Paris and a new promise
Ribeiro’s role in Neymar’s story did not end with that first move. Years later, as the Barcelona chapter edged towards its conclusion, he was again in the room.
This time, the setting was Ibiza. The cast: Neymar, his father, Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and the outline of another seismic transfer.
Ribeiro describes the early stage of those talks in blunt financial terms. “Nasser was offering him 25 million euros and we asked for 40.” The numbers were huge, even by the standards of the modern game, but the negotiation followed familiar lines.
Then came a strategic leak. “When Neymar's father allowed it to be leaked that Paris Saint-Germain was paying 25 in Paris, Barcelona improved the offer and gave him 26.”
Barcelona tried to hold the line by nudging the salary up. It bought them time, not loyalty. One year later, the dam burst. Paris Saint-Germain paid the now-infamous 222 million euros release clause and Neymar left for France.
In the end, Ribeiro says, the number they had chased was reached. “And one year later, Neymar left for 222 million euros and ended up getting 40.”
But money, he insists, was not the only engine behind the move.
“Neymar wanted to change the atmosphere and he had a promise that Paris Saint-Germain would build a great team.”
A new league, a new dressing room, a new project built around him. Barcelona had given him a starring role in a shared constellation. Paris offered something closer to his own galaxy.
The Ballon d'Or that never came
For all the trophies, goals and headline transfers, one individual prize continues to hover over Neymar’s career. The Ballon d'Or.
Ribeiro is adamant on this point. In his view, the Madrid path that never materialised would have changed the awards stage as well as the club colours.
If Neymar had played at Real Madrid, he would have won the Ballon d'Or. I have no doubt.
It is a bold claim, but it captures the essence of his story: a belief that the platform, the politics and the perception attached to the Bernabeu could have tipped the balance in an era dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Instead, Neymar’s legacy is written along a different line: the prodigy who chose Barcelona over Madrid, formed one of the great attacking trios of the modern game, then detonated the transfer market with a world-record move to Paris.
The trophies are real. The numbers are undeniable. The Ballon d'Or remains hypothetical. And that, in Ribeiro’s telling, is the great unanswered question in a career that still divides opinion: did Neymar simply pick the wrong shade of Spanish giant at the very start?
