A List of Uses for the Tax Revenue from Neymar
How France can use the cash injection that comes with soccer’s hottest young star

The Internet has been buzzing about Neymar’s rumored and now confirmed transfer from one superrich superteam (Barcelona) to another (Paris Saint-German). This is a million-euro deal, and not just because of the 222 million € release clause the PSG will have to pay Barça to release the star striker. According to moderately respected magazine Le Figaro, the French state stands to rake in 300 million € from Neymar in tax revenue.
This is a windfall for France, whose new government is hard at work deregulating the economy, defunding public goods, destroying unions, decreasing taxes on the rich and corporations, and generally desiccating the social safety net to a shadow of its former self under the pretext that the French people are “addicted” to social services. The austerity train is gathering speed, but perhaps we’re about to see a 300 million € cash infusion into an important public good. Here are my suggestions for projects the state could and should invest this Neymar money in.
—Cancel the planned 5 €/month cuts to housing subsidies for 6.5 million people
—Give all menstruating persons approximately 27 € in tampon subsidies
—Reimburse everyone whose money has ever been swallowed up by a vending machine, never to be seen again
—Subsidize PSG game tickets so they’re once again financially accessible to people who don’t own three sports cars and a racehorse
—Regulate the price of whole wheat, sourdough, and other baguettes so that they cost the same as the already price-regulated plain baguette (0.87 €, or $1.02)
—Give all MPs and French representatives in European Parliament a 300,000 € salary bump just to make sure they’re definitely incorruptible
—Erect of statue of Macron dressed as Jupiter in each of the 3,000 largest cities in France
—Pay for a fraction of the cost of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which are definitely not going to result in rampant gentrification, overpolicing, destruction of surrounding neighborhoods, and no tangible benefit for the city whatsoever
—Give every middle and high school student a copy of the steamy political thriller published by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in 2011
—Buy 300 million € worth of suppositories so Macron, his cabinet, and his parliamentarian lapdogs can shove their neoliberal agenda up their asses with more ease
—Give every French household a year’s supply of couscous. Not (just) to make fascists angry, but because it’s delicious
—Literally just give every adult and child in France 4.48 €
—Pay every French rap artist to stop using autotune forever
—Hire a diverse team of brilliant education professionals and academics to overhaul France’s national education curriculum and develop a new system that doesn’t prioritize rote memorization, obedience at the expense of critical thinking, and historical revisionism
—Anything that doesn’t involve putting more cops on the streets of poor neighborhoods in an attempt to shut up people who are asking for greater investment in these neighborhoods
—None of these things, because Neymar’s going to hide it all in a tax haven.


