The elections for Barcelona’s new president are two months away, and that gives potential candidates more than enough time to elicit votes based on decisions they’re expected to make once in the hot-seat.
It’s sure to be a keenly contested election with former president, Joan Laporta, believed to be willing to run again in an attempt to bring back the glory days to the Catalan club.
Toni Freixa is another candidate who has run for the post before but never been successful. His latest outburst is hardly likely to have done him any favours either.
Though Neymar remains an acquired taste for many, there’s little doubting his football credentials and Barca fans will recall with fondness how well he dovetailed with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez during the MSN era.
They way he left the club still grates, but Freixa believes he’s dropped off form-wise to such an extent that he shouldn’t even be considered as a possible future signing.
“I’m sure I wouldn’t try to sign Neymar,” he said to Mundo Deportivo.
“Because of how he left the club and because, due to his performance, he is now not even among the top 30 in Europe.”
With Barca having been starved of European success since Neymar helped them to a Champions League title in Berlin in 2015, the notion of bringing him back always tended to find favour with supporters.
To that end, Freixa has probably scored the biggest of own goals before his campaign has begun in earnest.