The PSG headquarters was searched in mid-February as part of the investigation into suspicions of tax favors granted to the Parisian club during the transfer of Neymar in 2017. This investigation is part of an investigation carried out since September 2022 around the operations of influence attributed to the club’s former communications director.
The headquarters of PSG was searched in mid-February as part of the investigation into suspicions of a tax favor granted to the Parisian club during the transfer of Brazilian striker Neymar in 2017, we learned on Thursday from a close source folder. These searches were carried out at the club’s headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) by the judicial police, said this source, confirming information from the daily Le Monde.
The Ministry of the Economy raided in mid-January
Contacted by AFP, a PSG spokesperson indicated that the club was collaborating “with all parties in this matter” with “the objective of stopping the false information circulating against it”. The investigation into the transfer of the Brazilian superstar is part of an investigation carried out since September 2022 around influence operations attributed to the club’s former communications director, Jean-Martial Ribes, 57 years old.
Justice wonders if the former Macronist vice-president of the National Assembly, Hugues Renson, tried to obtain from the government “tax advantages” for PSG during the transfer for 222 million euros – the most expensive of history – of Neymar in the club of the French capital. In mid-January, it was the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, which was raided as part of this investigation, including, according to Mediapart, the office of the general director occupied until recently by Jérôme Fournel, since appointed director office of the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.
“At the time of Neymar’s transfer, there was no rule allowing us to know the taxation of the transfer,” a source close to the club’s management told AFP on Thursday. PSG says it has “contacted the administration to demand that the case be treated as for any other transfer” and denounced “a media campaign against the club which began a month before the World Cup in Qatar in 2022” .