Brazil star Neymar has ended a hugely disappointing 18-month spell in Saudi Arabia after Al Hilal decided to cut their losses on the injury-plagued forward.
The 32-year-old joined the Saudi champions in a high-profile $94 million move from Paris Saint-Germain in August 2023 but has made just seven appearances for the club – three in the Saudi Pro League and four in the AFC Champions League.
On Monday night Al Hilal said they had “agreed to terminate the player's contract by mutual consent”, with Neymar expected to finalise a return to Santos where he began his career in his homeland.
“The club expresses its thanks and appreciation to Neymar for what he has provided throughout his career with Al Hilal, and wish the player success in his career,” said the club in a statement posted on social media.
The former Barcelona and PSG forward scored just one goal and created two more, a meagre return for a reported salary of $104 million per season.
Neymar was previously the subject of what is still the biggest transfer in football history when he joined PSG from Barcelona in 2017 for a fee of $229 million.
After his stint in French football he followed fellow superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the kingdom at a time of rapid expansion in Saudi football.
He arrived carrying an injury from his PSG days but recovered to make his debut as he provided two assists in a 6-1 league win over Al Riyadh on September 15, 2023.
However, just two months after his arrival in Riyadh he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing for Brazil in a World Cup qualifier and spent a year on the sidelines.
He returned for Hilal with two substitute appearances in late 2024 – including a cameo in a nine-goal thriller against UAE club Al Ain – but damaged his hamstring against Esteghlal in an Asian Champions League match on November 4 and has not played since.
Al Hilal coach Jorge Jesus said this month: "[Neymar] can no longer play at the level we are used to. Things have become difficult for him, unfortunately.”
Earlier in January, Neymar said he was aiming to play for his country in the 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.
“I know this will be my last World Cup, my last shot, my last chance and I will do everything I can to play in it,” he told CNN.
Neymar has been targeted by MLS teams, including the David Beckham-owned Inter Miami who considered reuniting him with his former Barca teammates Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, and also the Chicago Fire.
However, a return to boyhood club Santos seems imminent. A move back to Brazil would likely be the last chance for a player who is his country's all-time leading scorer with 79 goals in 127 matches.
At the start of his career he was hailed as the new Pele. After scoring 107 goals in 177 appearances for Santos, he joined Barcelona in 2013, becoming the rising star of a team that swept to the Uefa Champions League title in 2015 by beating Juventus 3-1 in Berlin.
A year later he scored the winning penalty in a shoot-out as Brazil won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics before his record-breaking switch to PSG a year later.
He won five Ligue 1 titles and alongside prolific French forward Kylian Mbappe led PSG to the final of the Uefa Champions League in 2020, but they lost to Bayern Munich in the final.
PSG reunited Neymar with Messi in the French capital, but along with Mbappe, the trio failed to gel and he was sold to Hilal in 2023.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
