Barcelona chief Robert Fernandez admits Neymar's defection to PSG left the club "depressed".
With a buyout clause set at a whopping 222 million euros, no one foresaw the Brazilian moving to Paris Saint-Germain.
"The way he [Neymar] left, did us a lot of damage in the middle of the summer," Fernandez told club members at the Assembly being held in Barcelona.
"He left us in a state of depression that could be seen in the Super Cup."
After such a wonderful beginning to the 2017/18 campaign, much of the 'noise' from over the summer has since disappeared.
"It was said that my colleagues and I didn't know what we were doing," Fernandez said.
"Not true. There was a lot of information that was not real, but we couldn't go out day after day to deny or say what we were doing."