Brazilian star Neymar ended his injury-plagued 18-month stay in Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal on Monday. Al Hilal said they had ‘agreed to terminate the player’s contract by mutual consent.’

“The club expresses its thanks and appreciation to Neymar for what he’s provided throughout his career with Al Hilal, and wishes the player success in his career,” said a club statement.

Full club statement pic.twitter.com/oxOrPUereF

— AlHilal Saudi Club (@Alhilal_EN) January 27, 2025

The 32-year-old former Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain forward played just seven times since joining the club, despite a reported salary of around $104m a year.

Neymar, the subject of what is still the biggest transfer in football history when he joined Paris Saint-Germain from Barcelona in 2017 for a fee of $230m, joined Al Hilal in August 2023.

He followed fellow superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the lucrative Saudi league.

But two months after his arrival in Riyadh, he ruptured a cruciate ligament in his left knee while playing for Brazil in a World Cup qualifier, which kept him on the sidelines for a year.

He returned for Al Hilal with two brief appearances in October and November but injured a hamstring and has not played since.

The club’s coach Jorge Jesus said recently: “He can no longer play at the level we’re used to. Things have become difficult for him, unfortunately.”

Earlier in January, Neymar said he was aiming to play in the 2026 FIFA World Cup in USA, Canada, and Mexico.

“I know this will be my last World Cup, my last shot, my last chance, and I’ll do everything I can to play in it,” he told CNN.

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While USA’s MLS teams gave Neymar offers, reports say Santos, the club where Neymar made his name, was in talks with him to return to his homeland.

A return 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 cast as the heir to Pele.

After scoring 107 goals in 177 appearances for Santos, he joined Barcelona in 2013, becoming the young star of a team that also featured Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, which swept to the Champions League title in 2015 by beating Juventus 3-1 in the final in Berlin.

A year later, he scored the winning penalty in a shootout as Brazil won the men’s football gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In 2017, Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain prised him away from Barcelona with what is still a world-record transfer fee of $230m.

He won five Ligue 1 titles, and he and prolific French forward Kylian Mbappe led PSG to the final of the Champions League in the Covid-blighted 2019-20 season, but it lost to Bayern Munich.

PSG reunited Neymar with Messi in the French capital, but the trio with Mbappe failed to gel as personal rivalries got in the way. He was pushed to Saudi Arabia by the Parisian management in 2023.

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