Barcelona defender has proposals from the Premier League, slows down his renewal

Ronald Araujo has made it clear that he wants to continue, but the 22-year-old Uruguayan feels Barcelona are not rewarding his performances enough given the interest he has garnered from the English Premier League.

Back in February, Ferran Correas confirmed the contract renewals of Araujo and Gavi will be finalized in March, but Tony Juanmarti of SPORT has now reported that despite having a similar motive, the extension of Araujo will continue ‘without bearing fruit’.

Araujo, whose current deal runs out in 2023, has no intention of leaving, but his demands and Barcelona’s current offer is simply not aligning, forcing the deal to get stretched.

It’s not that the Catalan management is questioning Araujo’s ambition. In fact, they consider him as one of the leaders both on and off the field, but economy-wise, he remains way off his current stature. Hence, the situation is pretty much clear; he wants to continue but not at any price.

Now, Araujo does understand Barcelona lack the financial muscle, but at the same time, he is aware of how much the team can, in fact, stretch, especially for the new signings like Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta. 

While there has been no development from either side in recent times, both Araujo and Barcelona hope to reach the middle ground soon, particularly when the former is attracting interest from the Premier League. 

In the face of all this, although the player is only willing to continue with Barcelona, he is not entirely ruling out the possibility of leaving, and the team management cannot really afford to discount this.

If they want him to be the new leader, they must reward him with equivalent figures or just accept that he might as well accept one of those ‘important offers’ he has at his disposal.