The plan designed by Neymar, his father and Real Madrid to bring the player to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu ahead of the start of next season is entering a decisive stage and Paris Saint-Germain have now become aware of the Brazilian's desire to leave the French capital.

As they have feared for months, Neymar does not want to continue at PSG, even if he has a contract until 2022. He has asked to sit down and to negotiate his exit, with his father having communicated this to club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi a few days ago.

Already the 26-year-old realises that it was a mistake to move to Ligue 1 and he hasn't adapted to the dressing room, where he doesn't have a good relationship with the Argentine nucleus or with Edinson Cavani.

During the Ballon d'Or gala held in Paris on December 7, 2017, he made it clear to the Real Madrid directors that he'd be willing to force and exit and to sign for the Spanish club.

At that point he became Real Madrid's primary objective, even to the point where their entire transfer strategy depends on this deal. The key to his future, though, lies in the hands of Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Amir of Qatar and the man at the very top of the PSG hierarchy.

Those close to PSG believe the main obstacle to an exit is the Amir's pride, rather than money. PSG captured the world's attention last summer by signing Neymar and Kylian Mbappe and it would appear weak to let their main superstar leave after just one year.

Of course, money would be a factor too and Real Madrid know that if the transfer is given the green light that it would cost anything from 260 million euros to 300m euros, or maybe more.

On top of that would be the player's salary, which would be an especially sensitive subject given that Cristiano Ronaldo is expected to negotiate his own salary increase at the end of the season, plus a signing bonus which could be around 40m euros.

Despite these eye-watering sums and the fact that the player could get out of his contract for 222m euros in the summer of 2019, the team from the Spanish capital believe it is better to move for the Brazilian now, given that the player has made moves to leave and given that they don't want to miss this opportunity.

They've already missed out on signing him before, and don't want to see him playing elsewhere for much longer.

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