Dusan Vlahovic's Future at Juventus: Salary Standoff and Market Interest
Dusan Vlahovic is back scoring decisive goals for Juventus, but his future in Turin hangs in the balance.
The Serbian striker, now 26, remains locked in a stand-off with the club over a new deal. Several rounds of talks have brought plenty of noise and very little progress. The issue is simple and stark: money.
Vlahovic wants to keep his current €12 million net salary. Juventus are offering roughly half.
For a player who just came off the bench to score the winner in a 1-0 victory at the weekend, it’s a bold stance. He was decisive on the pitch, then deliberately vague off it. Asked whether those might have been his last two games for Juve, he answered: “My last two games for Juve? We’ll see…”
No reassurance. No pledge. Just a pause and a hint of a door left ajar.
Torn between comfort and a bigger stage
The irony is that Vlahovic is said to feel settled in Piedmont. The fans certainly play their part. They roared his name during the match, a clear message from the Curva: they want their No. 9 to stay. For a striker, that kind of backing is hard to walk away from.
But the market is circling.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Vlahovic wants to wait and see whether a more lucrative offer lands on the table from another European heavyweight. Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona are both tracking the situation as they plan for life after Robert Lewandowski.
This isn’t a new story in Munich. Rumours of Bayern’s interest date back to early 2022, when Vlahovic chose Juventus instead. The Bundesliga champions never fully left the conversation; they’ve just stayed in the background, watching.
Bayern’s dilemma
La Gazzetta recently went further, reporting that Bayern is Vlahovic’s preferred destination. On paper, the fit is obvious: a traditional No. 9 in a club obsessed with long-term planning at centre-forward.
Reality is messier.
Bayern’s wage bill is under pressure, and sporting director Max Eberl has been tasked with trimming costs, not inflating them. Matching a €12 million net salary would be a heavy move in a dressing room already packed with big contracts. Juventus have drawn their line. Bayern have not yet shown where theirs lies.
The sporting picture is also complicated. At Bayern, Vlahovic would not walk straight into an undisputed starting role. He would likely arrive as a backup option, with the club still juggling its forward hierarchy. Nicolas Jackson, currently on loan from Chelsea, will leave at the end of his spell after Eberl confirmed Bayern will not trigger his buy-out clause. That opens a slot, but not necessarily a guaranteed starting shirt.
Bayern are also casting a wider net. Reports link them with Newcastle United’s Antony Gordon, a more versatile forward who can operate across the front line. According to The Athletic, Gordon is viewed as an alternative to RB Leipzig’s Yan Diomande, with both expected to command sizeable fees.
The list does not stop there. Recent reports mention Gordon’s teammate William Osula and Atalanta’s Charles De Ketelaere. Kicker describes De Ketelaere as the first alternative to Gordon, underlining how many different profiles Bayern are weighing before they commit.
So where, exactly, does Vlahovic sit in that pecking order? Corriere dello Sport doesn’t spell out what signals, if any, Bayern have actually sent to the player’s camp. For now, it looks more like a long-distance flirtation than a full-scale push.
Barcelona in the background, fitness in question
Barcelona’s interest is more discreet but equally logical. They, too, need to plan beyond Lewandowski, and they, too, are scanning the market for a striker who can anchor their attack for years. The Catalan club, though, lives under financial constraints of its own. Matching Vlahovic’s salary demands would be a serious decision in an already stretched structure.
Any club weighing up a move must also look at his body, not just his goals.
Vlahovic’s recent return to the scoresheet came after a lengthy lay-off with a persistent adductor problem. He scored as a substitute in a 1-1 draw with Hellas Verona on his comeback to the matchday squad, a reminder of his penalty-box instincts. The fitness question lingers all the same. A long-term, high-wage commitment to a striker who has battled recurring issues is not a decision top clubs take lightly.
So the standoff continues.
Juventus want to keep a forward who still has the trust of the fans and the knack for decisive moments, but on their terms. Vlahovic wants to keep his elite salary and, if possible, test himself at one of the game’s super-clubs without taking a financial step back.
The clock is ticking, the goals are still coming, and the chants in Turin grow louder. The real question now is simple: who blinks first—Vlahovic, Juventus, or a giant willing to pay the price?
