Mousa Dembele’s preference for a three-year extension to his contract threatens to further complicate Tottenham Hotspur’s desire to find an agreement with the Belgian midfielder.
Dembele cast doubt on his Spurs future by revealing he will not discuss extending his current deal until after the World Cup and leaving open the possibility that this could be his final campaign at the club.
The 30-year-old’s contract will only have 12 months remaining at the end of this season and manager Mauricio Pochettino is desperate to keep the man he has hailed “a genius.”
But Dembele realises this is likely to be his last big contract and wants a minimum three-year extension, taking him to 2022, when he will turn 35 in July.
Given Dembele’s injury record, it would represent a big risk for Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy to agree to a pay increase that would effectively run for four more years from this summer.
But Spurs are also aware that Dembele has interest from Europe, and in particular Italy, following his superb Champions League performance against Juventus in Turin.
Dembele is thought to earn in the region of £80,000-a-week, having signed his current Tottenham contract in January 2016, and is likely to seek an increase to around £100,000-a-week.
Unlike some of their rivals, Tottenham do not have any rules on only offering one-year extensions to players aged 30 or over – largely because they only have four players in that category – Dembele, Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente.
While Llorente will be allowed to leave for the right price in the summer, Lloris and Vertonghen are expected to sign new long-term Tottenham contracts in the coming months, along with Pochettino, Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Heung-min Son.
Dembele has also made it clear that he is currently happy at Tottenham and his situation is viewed differently to that of Toby Alderweireld, who is almost certain to leave the club at the end of the season.
(The Telegraph)
