Report: Paulo Dybala wants to stay at Juventus despite contract stalemate

As much as the on-field state of Juventus is a complete uncertainty from game to game entering the final month of the 2021 season (and so many months before that), the same can be said about what is going to follow over the course of the summer transfer window. So many players are up in the air when it comes to being a part of Juve’s 2021-22 roster, with big names aplenty included on that list.

It’s no secret that Paulo Dybala is one of those players who could stay or could go depending on what happens this summer.

Even with all of that being said: Dybala wants to stay right where he is.

Despite a contract dispute that has lasted over a year and the potential to be sold this summer, Dybala has made it clear that he wants to stay at Juventus, according to Tuttosport on Saturday, and continue at the club he’s been at since 2015. The basis of Tuttosport’s report is that the issues that is believed to be involving Dybala — who has a contract with Juventus until the summer of 2022 — are ones that he is very well fine with overlooking at the moment. It doesn’t matter if it is the lack of a new contract or if his starting spot under Andrea Pirlo is no longer guaranteed or that a potential with Max Allegri is something that will happen this summer, the most important thing for Juve’s No. 10 is staying in Turin.

Obviously so much talk surrounding Dybala these days is about the contract extension that hasn’t arrived and what might happen because of it. We know that Juventus and Dybala’s representatives aren’t exactly speaking regularly at this point. Or at least that’s what we’ve been told by Dybala’s agent in recent weeks. And if that’s still the case then it’s just another wrinkle to a contract saga that looked like it would be pretty much done and wrapped up come the final weeks of spring last year.

But, if Tuttosport’s report is to be believed and Dybala doesn’t end up signing a contract extension over the summer, then it could very well be a case of him betting on himself in the same way that he did last season when Juve tried to sell him to Manchester United and Tottenham before he put his foot down and decided to stay in Turin. With so much inactivity on a contract extension front, it seems rather clear from the outside looking in that Juventus aren’t willing to meet Dybala’s demands, and either he will have to readjust the big salary he’s asking for that would make him the club’s second-highest earner behind Cristiano Ronaldo or enter the 2021-22 season without a new deal.

This is obviously a move that Dybala has played before and has worked out in his favor. But those circumstances — both with the team’s roster as well as financial constraints — were a lot different than where we find ourselves two years later. Plus the whole fact that Dybala is about to finish up a season to absolutely forget where he’s struggled to stay healthy and only started all of 11 Serie A games.