Neymar criticised after online poker session during Santos rest weekend

Neymar has found himself at the centre of another public debate after confirming he spent part of a weekend playing online poker while unavailable for Santos’ Brasileirão match against Cruzeiro.

The Brazilian star was left out of the squad under what was described as a load management decision, with Santos opting to rest him rather than risk further physical strain. That in itself was not unusual. 

What turned the story into a talking point was the discovery that Neymar had used some of that same period to take part in an online poker session that quickly drew attention across Brazilian media and social platforms.

According to reports in Brazil, the poker activity stretched over the weekend and involved a lengthy grind online. 

While several outlets described it as a high stakes session and attached specific figures to the amount of time involved, those details have been reported with some variation. The core fact that appears firmly established is that Neymar did play online poker during the period in which he was being rested by Santos.

Neymar later addressed the criticism on social media, saying that poker is one of the hobbies he enjoys most outside football. He also made clear that he was playing online from home, rather than attending a live event or travelling elsewhere during the break from competitive action.

That distinction matters, but it did not stop the backlash. The issue for many critics was not whether Neymar had broken a club rule, but whether the optics were poor for a player whose fitness, availability and commitment are constantly under the microscope. 

A rest weekend tied to physical management tends to invite one kind of image. A long online poker session invites another.

From a poker point of view, the story is a reminder of how visible the game has become among elite athletes. Neymar has long been associated with poker and is one of the best-known footballers in the world to publicly embrace the game. 

In most circumstances that crossover helps poker, particularly when it brings attention from a mainstream audience. In this case, though, poker was pulled into a football narrative about professionalism and public perception.

For Santos, the situation is awkward rather than explosive. There is no strong indication that Neymar breached a formal restriction, and the club’s original position was that he had been rested as part of a broader workload strategy. 

Still, the episode has added another layer of noise around a player who rarely gets the benefit of a quiet week.

For poker media, the bigger takeaway is that poker continues to sit in an unusual cultural space. It is seen by players as a legitimate competitive hobby and mental challenge, but in the eyes of the wider public it can still be framed as a distraction when attached to a high profile athlete. Neymar’s weekend online session has become the latest example of that tension.

Santos rested Neymar for load management ahead of the match against Cruzeiro. Neymar later acknowledged that he played poker online from home during that period. The wider criticism came from the contrast between being unavailable for football while still visibly active in another competitive pursuit.

Some of the more dramatic claims about exactly how many hours Neymar played, and the exact size of the online buy-ins involved, have been reported inconsistently. Those details should be treated with caution unless further confirmation emerges.