Now it’s fixed: Benfica Lisbon has announced the transfer of David Neres. The 25-year-old winger comes from Shakhtar Donetsk and has signed a contract with the “Adlers” until 2027. According to the club’s announcement, a transfer fee of 15.3 million euros is due for the seven-time Brazilian international, taking Luca Waldschmidt from tenth place among the most expensive additions to the club Club history suppressed. His release clause has been set at €100m.
Neres only switched from Ajax Amsterdam to Donetsk in January for a fee of 12 million euros and has not played a game since then due to the war in Ukraine and the associated stoppage of the game. Italian transfer expert Gianluca di Marzio recently reported that Neres’ working paper contained a clause allowing him to be transferred at a low price due to the war.
Special transfer window: Notable players who left Russia and Ukraine
At Benfica, who are the right winger’s fourth professional stop in the fourth country, he will work alongside former PSV coach Roger Schmidt. For the German coach, he is the first major reinforcement. Before that, Alexander Bah (Slavia Prague), Petar Musa (Boavista) and Mihailo Ristic (Montpellier) came to Lisbon. Overall, Neres is the 113th Brazilian in the club’s history – Benfica have not signed more players from any country.
Neres is Ajax’s second most expensive signing to date
The homegrown player from FC São Paulo switched to Ajax in 2017 for 17.4 million euros (including 2.4 million from the resale participation after the Shakhtar transfer) and is thus the second most expensive new signing of the Eredivisie club after Sébastian Haller (came 2020 for 22.5m from West Ham). In five years and 179 games for Ajax, Neres has had 88 goals, three league titles and two Dutch Cups. In the case of Neres, a change within the special transfer window opened by FIFA for players from Russia and Ukraine due to the war did not come about.
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