Bayern Munich is still in the midst of contract extension negotiations with Dayot Upamecano as the French center back has yet to put pen to paper on a new deal with the German Rekordmeister. Over the course of this season, there have been a handful of details where there’s been back and forth between the club and Upamecano’s representatives including the wage structure, length of the proposed extension, and the existence of a release clause being attached to the new deal.
In the latest twist of the tale, Bayern have reportedly given Upamecano a deadline date of mid-February to decide on whether or not he wants to accept the club’s latest offer that is said to have included a 65 million euro release clause on a four-year deal. Reports have also suggested that Bayern are not prepared to increase their offer anymore and the ball is well and truly in Upamecano’s court at this juncture and it’s essentially at a ‘take it or leave it’ stage for the defender. As things stand, his current contract with Bayern is set to expire on June 30th of this year until he agrees to extend or decides to leave on a free transfer this summer; a worse case scenario for Bayern.
In the press conference ahead of the UEFA Champions League clash against PSV Eindhoven, fellow center-back Jonathan Tah campaigned for his defensive partner, saying that he’s hopeful the Frenchmen will extend his stay at Bayern. “Dayot is someone I like a lot, both on and off the pitch. The way he welcomed me in the team was special. Of course I hope he stays and extends his contract. I’m telling him that 100 times a day. He feels comfortable and knows what he has here,” the former Bayer Leverkusen man explained (via @iMiaSanMia).
In the center back pairing of Upamecano and Tah, which is Vincent Kompany’s preferred center back pairing, the Belgian manager has found something that works quite well at the heart of Bayern’s backline, and losing one of those two in Upamecano if he decides not to sign a new deal could prove to be costly. There have already been struggles in the past when Bayern lost David Alaba to Real Madrid on a free transfer and there have been center backs that have come and gone since then a la Matthijs de Ligt, Eric Dier, and Benjamin Pavard along with Lucas Hernández havng joined the club in 2019 and left for Paris Saint-Germain 2023 after an injury-laden tenure in Munich.
