arguably the greatest soccer player in history, as a “technical marvel, a wizard with magical feet,” Neymar is, at the tender age of 20, at the top of his game.
But Neymar’s talents while playing don’t seem to apply to his finances–he is certainly earning the kudos and piling in cash, but he’s also blowing most of it. Just in about two years, Neymar reportedly bought a $750,000 triplex and a $2 million mansion in a gated community, both located in the Northern Coast of the state of Sao Paulo; a $150,000 flat in Sao Paulo, capital district, and a Porsche Panamera Turbo, which came with a price tag ranging from $400,000 to $550,000. He also gave the 18-year-old mother of his only child a penthouse worth about $1 million in Santos, plus $15,000 per month in child support. But the icing of the cake was his purchase of a ridiculously expensive second-hand Italian yacht, which cost him a reported $8 million, not to mention its maintenance expenses of roughly $120,000 per year and an average decrease in value of 5% to 10% by year, according to people familiar with the matter.
Although he didn’t place in the list of The World’s Highest-Paid Soccer Players, released by Forbes in April and topped by David Beckham, Neymar is taking home a salary of about $4 million annually from Santos, the Brazilian club which has him under contract through 2014. Thanks to sponsorship deals with the likes of Nike (worth $1 million per year) and Red Bull, besides a handful of other Brazilian companies, Neymar banks another $4 million off the field, putting his total annual earnings at an estimated $8 million, according to Forbes’ sports writer Christina Settimi. That’s much less than the amount taken home by more established soccer stars such as Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and even Neymar’s countryman Kaka, all of whom spend accordingly to their income (By the way, Beckham prefers to rent a yacht when he is on vacation.) And in spite of certainly being a respectable sum, it’s not anywhere as near as the $18 million in annual earnings that the Brazilian media has attributed to him recently*. Besides, Neymar only began to make that sort of money just a while ago, when he renegotiated his contract with Santos, and he is yet to achieve the level of bankability that would allow him to buy expensive toys such as a yacht. “No doubt he’s probably overspending,” Settimi says, also noting that his club could have something to do with that. “I wouldn’t put it past Santos to be supporting the behavior to keep him there.
One of my UK sports sources says they want to keep him from going to Europe and have been bending rules to make him happy.” Forbes’ senior editor Kurt Badenhausen agrees, but also points out that Neymar is just in the beginning of his career. “Neymar is on the upswing and will be making good money for another 10+ years,” Badenhausen predicts. “It is still a little disconcerting though.” As disconcerting as it is, athletes and money has always been a bad mix. Between 1985, when Mike Tyson made his professional debut at age 18, to his retirement two decades later, the boxing star made somewhere between $300 million and $400 million. At the height of his career, a single fight was worth $30 million. But during that time, Tyson bought mansions, cars and Bengal tigers. In late 2002, he walked into a Las Vegas jewelry store and bought a $174,000 gold chain with 80 carats in diamonds. Eight months later, Tyson filed for bankruptcy, accumulating debts of about $23 million.
Other prominent sports figures like NBA all-star Antoine Walker, who made more than $110 million while he was in the league, and Evander Holyfield, have all gone bankrupt as well. eep things at home for Neymar, former Brazilian soccer star Romario, who played a vital role in Brazil’s winning of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, was arrested in 2009 in a child support case involving his first wife. At the time, Romario’s debts totaled almost $5 million. One exception to that rule is Ronaldo, another former Brazilian soccer star who holds a 45% stake at the 9ine Sports and Entertainment agency, a company with deals outside mainstream soccer, of which Neymar is a client. The UK-based WPP Group owns another 45% of the agency and Brazilian entrepreneur Marcus Buaiz has the remaining 10%. Thanks to 9ine’s strong presence in Brazil and other business ventures, Ronaldo’s net worth has been estimated between $200 million and $250 million, and counting. Perhaps he can teach Neymar, who’s expected to be motivated and play at his best by the time of the next World Cup, a thing or two about being financially responsible.
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