Report: Juventus has started contract extension talks with Paulo Dybala

It was back in October that we heard Juventus and Paulo Dybala representatives were going to start talks about a contract extension. The catch was that it was going to be “in the coming weeks,” with Juventus preparing to give the striker who looked to be on his way out over the summer just a few months earlier now appears to be back in the good graces of the people who were trying to sell him.

Those “coming weeks” might be about four months later, but that next step seems to have arrived.

According to Friday morning’s edition of Tuttosport, talks have begun between Juventus and the Dybala camp on a contract extension through 2025. Dybala, whose current contract runs through the 2021-22 season, is Juventus’ third-highest paid player behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Matthijs de Ligt. It is reported by Tuttosport in Friday’s cover story that Dybala and his camp are asking for upward of €10 million net per season, which would be more than €2 million more a year than he currently makes.

If he were to agree to a contract through 2025, Dybala would become the only Juventus player with a deal that runs through the 2024-25 campaign. The likes of de Ligt, Leonardo Bonucci, Rodrigo Bentancur and Merih Demiral all have contracts that run through 2024. But it would be Dybala who would be the first Juve player who would have that kind of security and potential future at the club.

And by every account, that’s what he wants.

The summer of drama surrounding Dybala looks like it’s such a long, long time ago now with what he has done and how important he has become to this Juventus side. The arrival of Maurizio Sarri has breathed some new life into Dybala’s career after a tough 2018-19 campaign that saw him struggle to find any kind of positive form under Max Allegri.

Dybala has already matched his goal total from a season ago and it’s only February. And while he’s obviously not scoring at the kind of rate that he did when he first signed with Juventus, there is no doubting that Dybala’s one of the cornerstones of Sarri’s side, with the kind of season he’s having measured by more than just goals and assists right now.

Having turned 26 years old in the middle of November, Dybala still has plenty of very good years of football ahead of him. And with Juventus reportedly wanting to hand him a contract through 2025, they’re thinking that the best is yet to come from La Joya, too.