Dembélé proposes a "Golden Ball level" salary increase, how should non-rich Paris respond?

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Li Jingyi

On September 22, 28-year-old French forward Dembélé won the Golden Ball at the Chatelet Theater and entered a new stage of his career. With the change of status, Paris Saint-Germain's current number one star hopes to receive corresponding treatment that better reflects his honor and status - in short, a salary increase. Dembele's current pre-tax annual salary is 18 million euros, the highest in Paris. His agent Sissoko and Paris director Campos met about this. The player camp's demand is naturally a substantial salary increase. Paris, which has also completed the transformation of European championship honors, is determined to implement the established policy of club supremacy. The game unfolds slowly.

Dembele's current contract runs until the summer of 2028. The Golden Globe Award has confirmed his superstar status, but the salary received is not enough to reflect his superstar status. "L'Equipe" revealed that Paris admitted that the annual salary of 18 million is indeed inconsistent with Dembele's new status. However, Paris hopes to handle the request for a "significant salary increase" of an unknown amount put forward by Dembele's camp rationally. Dembele's salary increase is reasonable: First, personal honors should be accompanied by corresponding financial returns; secondly, when Dembele landed at the Parc des Princes with a transfer fee of 50 million euros in the summer of 2023, his franchise agreement did not have a "Golden Ball Clause" attached. This clause was common practice when he played for Dortmund and Barcelona. Why is Paris the exception? The management of the Ligue 1 hegemony is very convincing: Do you think he dared to think that he could win the award when he came? Third, Dembele believes that he has contributed to uniting the locker room and helped Enrique mediate conflicts within the team in the autumn of 2024.

It is currently unclear what position Paris will take when negotiating a new contract with Dembele. Public opinion can only look for clues from the past statements of powerful figures. A few weeks before the announcement of the Golden Globe Awards, Campos made a strong statement when he was a guest on French star Roten's podcast on Monte Carlo Radio: Paris' new salary policy treats everyone equally, and Mr. Golden Globe is no exception.

"The stability of the club will not change because a player wants to be different. We want to protect Paris Saint-Germain. We want to play well and win. For this reason, everyone understands: the coach will not decide the starting lineup based on the player's status or past results. It is not your past that makes you the main force in Paris, but you have to prove every day, every game that you are the best The club's policy is to build the team. The club has changed. Our policy is closely related to "pay for merit" - the star is Paris itself and the whole team. "

Paris has no intention of repeating the same mistakes. As a result of breaking out of the Champions League, the Italian national team proposed a salary increase, but because the requirements were too high and inconsistent with the Paris New Deal, the contract renewal was unsuccessful, and Donnarumma was forced to leave the team. Campos hinted that the players on the team should take warning: "The club is more important than any individual. Paris is not what it used to be. Donnarumma's departure was caused by many factors. But when he proposed a salary that was still at the 'old Paris' level, not the 'new Paris' standard... the decision was natural."

According to "Team", Paris hopes to control the pace of negotiations with Dembele, and one of its core positions is that Dembele's Golden Globe Award is "collective credit." Emotionally and logically, the French striker should be rewarded for his contribution, but the lion's mouth is wide open? Don't even think about it. Today, Paris will no longer give any player a contract worth 30 million before tax like Messi or Neymar, especially now that the Financial Fair Play Act and reduced broadcast revenue have restricted the team's finances.