Neymar attempted to engineer a move back to the Camp Nou during the summer, just two years after his world-record €222million transfer to Paris Saint-Germain.

However, a deal did not materialise despite Barca’s efforts.

Pique said he and his team-mates tried to help Neymar return to the Spanish giants amid the constraints of Financial Fair Play, telling Cadena Ser program El Larguero: “We didn’t stump up money.

“What we said to the president was whether we could change our contracts because we knew there was a Financial Fair Play issue… so we said to the president, rather than earn something in year one, we could earn it in year two or three or four.

“At the end of the day we want to go along with what the club is doing and if we can help the club, in this case avoiding a financial fair problem, we’ve got no problem in doing that.

“Rather than reducing our salary it was about finding a formula so that if the club wanted to sign Neymar they could. At the time they thought it was a good idea, but then other problems cropped up.”

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