Arsene Wenger: 'Neymar deal beyond rationality'

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 03 August 2017

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger describes Neymar's proposed £198.6m move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain as "beyond rationality".

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has described Neymar's proposed £198.6m move to Paris Saint-Germain as "beyond rationality".

The Barcelona attacker is closing in on a world-record switch to the Ligue 1 runners-up, who are ready to meet his minimum release clause up front and in full.

The deal will smash the previous transfer record of £89m to take Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United last summer, and Wenger acknowledged that it was a sign of how much the transfer window has changed over the years.

"It is the consequence of the ownerships and that has completely changed the whole landscape of football in the last 15 years. Once a country owns a club, everything is possible. It becomes very difficult to respect the Financial Fair Play because you can have different ways or different interests for a country to have such a big player to represent a country," he told reporters.

"It can't justify the investments and looks unusual for the game. That's why I always support football living with its own resources. We crossed the £100m line last year and only one year later, we're crossing the £200m line. When you think that Trevor Francis was the first £1m player and that looked unreasonable, that shows you how much distance and how far we have come, how big football has become. It's beyond calculation and beyond rationality.

"We still live with rationality. We are not the only ones. I think 99% of the clubs do that but of course we cannot compete at that level. It will have implications because of the consequences it will provoke. The clubs, when Barcelona will want to buy a player, will say, 'My friends, you have £250m in your pocket'. Today a player is worth what the club can afford to spend and there is no anymore, I would say that the price of a player depends on the identity of the buyer and you can not put it on the context of the market."

Neymar's proposed move has reportedly hit a snag after La Liga refused to accept PSG's payment for the Brazilian.