Neymar’s father says tax issues may force Barcelona star to leave Spain

Neymar's father wants Spanish authorities to drop any investigations regarding his son's tax situation - or he may be forced to leave Barcelona.

Neymar Snr (Neymar da Silva Santos) argues that suspicion - and even persecution - of his offspring by tax agencies is unfair, and could lead to the player deciding not to renew his current deal with the Catalan club. A Brazilian court has frozen £31.3 million worth of assets belonging to Neymar Jr, his family and related businesses, and the 23-year-old is alleged to have evaded £10.5m in Brazil taxes between 2011 and 2013. Speaking to Cadena SER, the Brazilian maestro's dad was not mincing his words about the forward's uncertain future:

"We are talking about renewal, but we need to solve some things - we need to know if Spain accepts our situation. "We must do the right things and know if Spain let us work. We need to stop these investigations. We want the peace of mind. "For years, we’ve been working with this company. I do not want to talk about persecution but if we don’t have a comfortable situation to work we can not stay in Spain. "We never had such big fiscal problems in Brazil. After arriving Spain, the attacks began and the attacks have now spread to Brazil. "We will respect the contract he has with the club, but we don’t want a renewal without peace of mind."

Sounds like the opening pitch of a negotiation.