Neymar: "Hardly anything happened"

Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2015 by Marca.com

Neymar:

In an interview with 'Rede Globo', Neymar denied having insulted Enrique Osses, the referee that presided over the Brazil-Colombia game. "Hardly anything happened", he assured.

The forward was punished with a four-game suspension after kicking the ball hard at Armero once the game had finished and in the handbagging that ensued, trying to head-butt Murillo. However, the match ban was more to do with what occurred after in the tunnel leading to the dressing rooms.

According to Neymar, he waited for the referee "to ask him why he had sent me off." At that moment, according to the player, security guards moved in to see what was going on, "thinking I don't know what… that I was going to hit him or something, and he ended up believing it all."

However, the referee's version of events is quite different. According to his book, Neymar quite literally said, "You want to make yourself famous, you son of a bitch." Alberto Lozada, a member of CONMEBOL's Disciplinary Committee, said that the punishment could have been even greater. "From what the records say, the action was premeditated, waiting in the tunnel to insult him".