Paris Saint-Germain have hit out at a poll conducted by a French radio station which they claimed was attempting to portray star player Neymar negatively.
Radio station RTL determined that 84% of the French population believes the Brazilian ‘practices a dangerous game for himself’ – a reference to Neymar’s tendency to show off his repertoire of tricks and skills during games, which can rub defenders the wrong way.
The PSG star picked up an injury which will keep him out for ten weeks – ruling him out of the Ligue 1 leaders’ Champions League round of 16 tie against Manchester United – after being fouled three times in quick succession against Strasbourg earlier this month, a sequence that came in response to perceived showboating from Neymar.
However, the club took issue with the survey, calling it a “pseudo-poll”.
“First, we have a huge doubt about the reliability of this survey,” the club said in a statement.
“By even giving, for the simple exercise, an ounce of credit to these figures, should we laugh or cry when reading such a result?
“We say stop to these pseudo-polls which will have no other effect than to move away from our championship the greatest geniuses of this football which is our shared passion.”
PSG later posted a video of Neymar’s best tricks to their website, urging their star “not to change anything”.
