Reports: Danilo’s salary holding up potential exchange deal for Joao Cancelo

If Juventus and Manchester City are to pull off the Joao Cancelo-for-Danilo (plus cash) swap deal before the Premier League’s summer transfer window closes this coming Thursday, it will have been a successful race again time.

That means, with plenty to accomplish between now and then, any potential road blocks will have to be quickly removed before Fabio Paratici can shake some hands and call it a done deal for that corner of business within the greater country lines of England.

There might be one of those road blocks right now.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport and Sky Sport Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio, one of the salaries of the players involved in the proposed swap deal between the English and Italian champions is causing a hold-up in the proceedings. It is that of Danilo, not Joao Cancelo, though, with the Brazilian right back’s current wages not exactly what Juventus has in mind if he were to suddenly find themselves paying him that money as compared to what he earns at Manchester City.

From Di Marzio’s report Friday night:

The discussions continued, but there is still distance between the sides in regards to wages. The player has three years left with his current contract, at 5 million per season. Juve is offering a longer term but less money per season. The parties will reconvene in the coming hours.

Obviously with the Premier League’s transfer window shutting in a matter of days, it’s not like Juve and City officials aren’t going to be talking over the weekend, so that last sentence is very much going to be the case. Paratici will be doing plenty of talking with both sides of the football rivalry in Manchester, so it’s not like he’s going to suddenly depart the city.

But when it comes to this deal, and what Di Marzio is reporting is interesting: Juventus want to offer Danilo a contract and they want him to replace Cancelo since he’s a logical option to include in the deal, but they want to do it at less money even though they would tack on another year what’s on his current contract. Is that something that we’ve seen happen before when it comes to Juventus negotiating a contract? Not really, mainly because basically all of Juventus’ signings over the last few years have been players that have seen their salaries go up when they sign with the Italian champions.

Just like the situation with Paulo Dybala, it’s a race against time to get something done on the Cancelo-Danilo swap deal front. We could know this weekend, we could know three or four days from now. The “good” thing in all of this is that with this year’s Premier League transfer deadline being at 5 p.m. BST on Aug. 8, we’re going to know, transfer or no transfer, the final outcome less than a week from now.