He alleges that he traveled at dawn and the judge accepts it: “I was scoring a goal and I was already in bed”
Section 6 of the Barcelona Court has accepted that Paris Saint-Germain striker Neymar da Silva will no longer be present at the trial that began this Monday and in which he is accused of alleged fraud and corruption in his signing for FC Barcelona from Santos FC in 2013.
In the process of preliminary questions, the footballer’s lawyer, María Massó, has asked the court that Neymar and his parents – also accused – should not continue in the room alleging that on Sunday Neymar played a match against Marseille and then had to submit to a doping control, so he and his parents “have had to travel to Barcelona at dawn” to attend the trial this Monday morning.
The president of the court, José Manuel del Amo, has been in favor of exempting them from having to continue in the trial on the condition that the other parties did not object, and they have not done so: “It is well known that Mr. Da Silva Santos Júnior I was scoring a goal and I was already in bed,” said the magistrate, who detailed that he listened to the match on the radio when he was already in bed.
Then Neymar and his mother, Nadine Gonçalves, left the room, while the player’s father, who was also authorized to leave, first decided to stay but later left during a break.
Neymar’s defense has also asked that his interrogation -which was scheduled for Friday- be done “as soon as possible” so that he can train and play the games he has in the next few days, and the court has agreed to question him on Tuesday for the morning.
He has also asked that his resignation to use the last speaking time be accepted or that he can do so by videoconference, so that he would not have to return to Barcelona, ??which the court will decide this afternoon.
Neymar faces a request for a sentence of five years in prison in this trial, and the former Blaugrana presidents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu, the player’s parents, the Santos FC representative Odilio Rodrigues and the two clubs as legal entities are also accused .
THE DEFENSES SAY THAT IT HAS ALREADY BEEN JUDGED
The first morning of the trial was dedicated to the processing of preliminary questions, in which the defenses argued that the facts prosecuted in this case, known as the ‘Neymar 2 case’, were already tried in the ‘Neymar case’, which ended with an agreement with which FC Barcelona accepted a sentence to a fine of 5.5 million euros for defrauding the Treasury with the hiring of the player.
Instead, the accusations consider that the facts that are being prosecuted now, and in this sense the prosecutor has recalled that the conformity sentence only referred to taxation and instead “in this trial it is being considered that this contract is criminal “.
For its part, the Dis group, owner of 40% of Neymar’s federal rights and which is aggravated by not collecting its proportional share in the transfer, has also rejected that the case was already tried, and has argued that it was neither even appeared in the cause that ended in compliance.
JURISDICTION OF BRAZIL
Neymar’s defense has also asked the court to drop the case because it considers that it should be tried in Brazilian jurisdiction, which the court has explained that it will argue in the sentence.
In the same sense, the defense of Neymar, which is practiced by the lawyer María Massó, has argued that the crime of corruption between individuals attributed to Neymar and his parents is not punishable in Brazil.
