AC Milan are confident that they will be able to renew the contracts of Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez, according to a report this morning.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) report this morning, there is no absolute urgency regarding the French duo but their contracts expire in June 2026, so the right time has arrived to negotiate extensions.
The management are well aware that Theo and Maignan have admirers around Europe, especially as they continue to show off at the European Championship, but the club considers them unsellable and Zlatan Ibrahimovic assured this in a recent press conference.
“Maignan, Theo Hernandez and Leao will remain. They are among the best in the world in their roles, they have a contract and they are happy. They stay because we don’t need to sell,” he said.
Now the challenge is to find an agreement on the new salary. Milan have set an internal salary cap at €6.5m net per year per player, which is the amount that Rafael Leao earns. The full-back currently earns €4.5m, the goalkeeper €3.2m.
They would both easily find a big club willing to pay them much more, but the Rossoneri have no intention of selling and they plan to put forward offers that will see them sign by the end of the summer.
6.5 million cap is reasonable considering the t.v deals are lesser in Italy. The reason though is because we can’t keep star players in Italy. It is a catch 22.
Reasonable? Even inter and jube pay their star player 10M per season while recovering from massive debt. And milan, with debt free status cant even match that. Lol
yeah Milan should get relegated, then you’ll be happy
Barella and Lautauro are strikers and midfielders.
A cap can be a soft or hard one. Soft means that is where you aims to keep it in general, with few exceptions that can go higher. Issue is, 10 million net and gross is completely different. A good amount of wages and transfer fees to income ratio is about 70%. So if we earn 420 million euros, that leaves you a wage budget with transfers at 294 million euros. If we have a transfer budget of 100 million. That leaves us with 194 million euros for wages. You need to divide that by 23 players. Averages out to 8.4 million, then remove taxes…6.5 is a decent target. It makes sense. Sure, Leao, If you count in the 20 million we gave to Lille, plus his wages, bonuses, it puts him in the same ball park as Barella and Martinez. I think giving thecsame to Theo makes sense because his position is typically not one where many can replace him at a decent price even with a player of lesser quality. It is best to retain him.
But for a goalie like Maignan, 6.5 is more than enough, because you can find good keepers at a lesser wage who can do the job without putting us in a compromised position.
The 6.5M€ salary cap was fine for the 2010s. Times have changed and Milan’s finances are OK now. It won’t bankrupt the club if they give Theo 8M€ and Mike 7M€.