The transfer of Neymar from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for 222 million euros, in the summer of 2017, remains to this day the biggest transfer in the history of football. A financial effort that many today consider unjustified given the Brazilian’s performance during his visit to the capital, but which could have been much heavier. According to Mediapart, Paris would have indeed benefited from the help of Gérald Darmanin, Minister of Public Accounts at the time, and his chief of staff at the time, to avoid paying tens of millions of euros in taxes on the amount of the Brazilian player’s release clause.
However, the affair was off to a bad start. “The risk of taxation in France is high,” predicted PSG’s tax lawyers, estimating that the tax authorities and Urssaf could claim between 67 and 224 million euros on the transfer. Fear confirmed by the Ernst & Young firm, which is instead counting on 88 million taxes. It’s a lot. Too much for the club’s management, despite its vengeful obsession with Barça, a few months after the return to the Champions League. It was therefore necessary to find a way to avoid these cumbersome additional millions of euros. And people to help.
Darmanin’s chief of staff would have provided solutions to PSG
That’s good, because the club’s communications director at the time, Jean-Martial Ribes, is very friendly with the Macronist deputy Hugues Renson (also vice-president of the National Assembly until 2022), himself a big fan. of Paris Saint-Germain. Very quickly, the latter came into contact with Gérald Darmanin and reported him to the club management. ” ” He [le ministre] has the thing in mind and tells me that he is working on it. » In turn, Darmanin’s chief of staff, Jérôme Fournel, contacted the former general director of PSG, Jean-Claude Blanc, and sent him a note. He too is pessimistic about the likely taxation. The case law is not on the Parisian side:
“The Urssaf have recently ruled out, in quite similar cases, in favor of subjugation in the context of controls in the rugby sector. […] Even with the best will, the Urssaf will hardly be able to make a 180-degree turn on this issue. » But it turns out that this person close to Darmanin had ideas to propose to PSG to prevent the French champion from avoiding paying social security contributions.
“It’s the sporting deal of the century”
The machine then starts up again. Ribes forwards the note with the solutions to Renson, asks if he “has any news from the minister”, sends the MP the PSG memo for a tax-free proposal based on the solutions sent by Fournel. “They must be able to accept that for us to finalize,” said the communications director of Paris Saint-Germain, while putting pressure on his friend, even if it means playing on the sensationalist rope. “If it doesn’t pass it will have an impact on a lot of things. […] This is the sporting deal of the century, it must not be killed by the administration. »
After a final decisive meeting in Bercy, PSG will finally receive two tax “rulings” sent by the tax authorities and Urssaf of Île-de-France: the club will have neither tax nor social security contributions to pay.
As many have pointed out since the publication of the Mediapart article, Gérald Darmanin then became enthusiastic, “about the taxes he [Neymar] will be able to pay in France”, a few hours before the officialization of the Brazilian’s signing in Paris. Words that ring false after the fact, although Ney brought in approximately 24 million per year to the State and Social Security in taxes and social security contributions linked to his salary.