Neymar’s Near Move to Real Madrid – Ballon d’Or Impact Revealed

Wagner Ribeiro has seen enough of football’s back rooms to know how close deals come to collapsing. With Neymar in 2013, he insists, the collapse went the other way. According to the Brazilian’s former agent, the forward was “one step” from Real Madrid, and that single step changed not just a career path, but perhaps the Ballon d’Or landscape of an entire era.

Madrid deal “all agreed” – and waiting on Santos

Neymar’s move from Santos to Barcelona in 2013 shook the market. It was one of those transfers that defined a generation: a Brazilian prodigy joining Lionel Messi at Camp Nou, a front line built to dominate Europe. Yet Ribeiro says the story was almost written in white.

In a long interview with GE Globo, the agent detailed how Real Madrid had moved into what he calls an “absolute advantage” in the race. The work had been done, the trips made, the calls answered. Years of courting from both Spanish giants came down to a single missing signature in Brazil.

“Everything was agreed with Florentino,” Ribeiro recalled, describing direct negotiations with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. The club’s lawyers had flown to São Paulo. Contracts were being shaped, numbers aligned. All of it, he says, sat on one condition: Santos had to give its approval.

It never came.

An agent pushing for the Bernabeu, a player choosing Barça

Ribeiro does not hide where he wanted Neymar to land. He makes it clear he saw Madrid as the best stage for his client and, perhaps, for his own work.

“I wanted him to go to Real Madrid, of course I wanted that. Because of everything,” he admitted. The money, the platform, the aura of the Bernabeu – it all appealed. Yet the decision, he stresses, never belonged to him. “It is not the agent who decides, it is the player.”

The player chose Barcelona.

What followed is now part of modern football folklore: the Brazilian lining up with Messi and Luis Suárez, later feeding off the rhythm of Xavi and Andrés Iniesta behind him. Trophies arrived in a rush. Neymar became part of the most feared attacking trident in Europe, winning everything there was to win at club level in Spain.

Ribeiro, despite his Madrid leanings, does not question that choice. The medals are his proof. “He played a lot alongside Suarez, Messi, Xavi and Iniesta... There were only the great stars there. And he won everything. And there is no regret.”

An intruder on the plane to Barcelona

The agent’s personal story in all of this is tinged with a strange irony. He had spent years trying to steer Neymar toward Real Madrid. When the player finally boarded a plane to Barcelona, Ribeiro was on it – but not exactly in the mood to celebrate.

“When I travelled on the same plane with Neymar to Barcelona, to attend his unveiling ceremony, they sat me down as if I were an intruder,” he recalled. The deal was done, the cameras were waiting, the city ready to welcome its new star. Ribeiro, though, found himself pushed to the margins of the moment he had helped build.

“I did not take part in the celebration, but stayed in one of the corners,” he said. A decisive transfer in modern football, and the man who had once been central to Neymar’s career watched it unfold from the shadows.

Ibiza, PSG and the beginning of the end at Barcelona

Ribeiro’s role in Neymar’s story did not end at Camp Nou. Years later, he found himself in a very different setting: Ibiza, not São Paulo or Madrid. The stakes were just as high.

He met there with Neymar, the player’s father and Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi. The subject was clear – a move to Paris and a new chapter away from Barcelona.

“Nasser was offering him 25 million euros and we asked for 40,” Ribeiro said. The negotiation twisted in a way only football can. When Neymar’s father allowed it to be leaked that PSG were paying 25 million in Paris, Barcelona reacted. The Catalan club improved their offer and pushed his salary to 26 million.

It was only a temporary win.

“One year later, Neymar left for 222 million euros and ended up getting 40,” Ribeiro explained. The world-record fee shattered the market and shifted the power balance in Europe. Neymar got his raise, PSG got their superstar, and Barcelona lost the player around whom they had hoped to build their future.

Money, Ribeiro insists, was not the only driving force. Neymar wanted something else: a change of scenery, a different responsibility, a team built around him. “Neymar wanted to change the atmosphere and he had a promise that Paris Saint-Germain would build a great team.”

The Ballon d’Or that never came

For Ribeiro, one conviction has never shifted: Neymar had the talent and the stage to win the Ballon d’Or. He just believes the stage should have been Madrid, not Barcelona or Paris.

“If Neymar had played at Real Madrid, he would have won the Ballon d'Or. I have no doubt,” he said.

It is a bold claim, but it cuts to the heart of the what-if that has always followed Neymar’s career. At Barcelona, he lived in Messi’s shadow. At PSG, he battled injuries, inconsistency and the weight of expectation. At Madrid, Ribeiro argues, he would have been cast as the leading man of the Bernabeu, not the brilliant co-star.

The trophies, the goals, the transfer fees – they all tell one story. Ribeiro’s memories tell another: of lawyers in São Paulo, a deal “all agreed” with Florentino Perez, and a single missing approval from Santos that, in his eyes, cost Neymar the golden ball.