Barcelona star Neymar admits he has no intention of retiring at Camp Nou

The Brazilian forward will not be leaving the La Liga giants any time soon but he has reiterated a desire to grace the books of Flamengo at some stage

Neymar will not be seeing out his playing days at Barcelona, with the Brazilian planning to head home to Flamengo at some point.

At just 25 years of age, the time to hang up his boots remains some way off for the Samba superstar.

He has also committed his immediate future to Barca, with a contract through to 2021 penned at Camp Nou in October 2016.

Neymar should still be in his prime when that deal comes to an end, with another extension possible, but a man widely tipped to capture the Ballon d’Or crown in his career has reiterated that he will return to South America before calling it a day.

He told Canal Esporte Interativo: “I have a lot of desire to one day play for Flamengo, with the Maracana full, playing in the Copa Libertadores.”

Neymar has already played domestic football in his homeland, with Santos having provided him with a platform on which to showcase his talent and earn a high-profile switch to Europe.

Relations between player and club have soured somewhat in recent years, though, with a big-money move to Barca attracting unwelcome attention.

Neymar has faith in Barcelona

With Neymar still at a loss to explain how he became caught up in legal wrangling, he recently shunned the opportunity to pass his best wishes on to Santos as they celebrated their 105th anniversary.

Pele, Robinho and a number of other club legends did send messages, but nothing emerged from Catalonia.

Neymar added: “I don’t have an obligation to give my congratulations.

“I am grateful, I am thankful for everything they’ve done for me, I love and loved to play for Santos, my entire family are Santos supporters, I even turned into a Santos supporter, but I’m not obliged to do everything they wish.

“I have enormous respect for Santos, everyone in my family are Santos supporters, only that also has a bad side. Santos entered the courts against us for something I still don’t understand today.

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“They said the only thing missing was if I scored an own-goal in the game against Barcelona [in the 2011 Club World Cup final]. There are details that nobody knows.”

Neymar joined Barcelona in 2013 and has gone on to make 180 appearances for the club, netting 100 goals.

Unknown reasons? How about cheating Santos out of millions of dollars in his sale transaction? That would be good enough to pi,,ss anyone off. But clearly that much money is not enough to survive on so there was a further need to cook the books to avoid paying taxes in Spain. That in turn pi,,,ssed the Spanish government off.