PSG open the door to Neymar's Barca return on one-year loan (L'Equipe)

L'Equipe published comments from a source at the Parc des Princes who did not rule out the Brazilian leaving on a year-long loan with a purchase option.

Neymar’s desire to return to Barcelona is evident but the Camp Nou board are running out of cards to play as the chase for the Brazilian intensifies with Juventus and Real Madrid both considering their options.

Barça’s gambit thus far has been to try and tempt PSG with a players-plus-cash deal, but now that Philippe Coutinho has left for Bayern Munich on loan and Ousmane Dembélé has suffered another hamstring injury there are few options on the table likely to impress the Parc des Princes hierarchy.

That leaves Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu with only one viable option: a loan deal with a purchase option. L’Equipe quoted a PSG source as saying that the club will not rule out a move of that nature for a player who seems to have burned his bridges in Paris, but that the Ligue 1 giants would rather see a cash sum offered at this stage. “We are open to the possibility,” L’Equipe reported the source as saying. “However, the idea is not to reach an agreement, but to ensure that we meet the required financial conditions.”

PSG remain ahead of UEFA in the Financial Fair Play stakes but have had a relatively quiet summer so as not to attract the scrutiny of the governing body’s auditors. That has led Barça to believe that they may be able to structure a deal to get Neymar on loan for now – with a sizeable fee for the privilege and at least a large chunk of his considerable wages also to cover – with a purchase option in the region of €120m next summer, which would swell PSG’s transfer coffers ahead of the 2020-21 campaign.