McTominay asks for €7-8m a year and his Napoli contract talks stall

Scott McTominay wants seven, perhaps eight million euros a season to commit to Napoli beyond 2028. That figure explains why talks over a new contract have stalled.

The club are reportedly willing to extend his deal to 2030 with an improved salary, but do not intend to meet those demands. A few weeks ago the negotiation looked well advanced. Now it has stopped.

Money is not the only obstacle. There is also uncertainty about the project. McTominay and his representatives want a clearer idea of Napoli's prospects before signing anything new. The two sides will probably sit down again before the end of the season, when the club's plans should be clearer. If they do, Napoli could work on a deal built on bonuses tied to individual performance, appearances and team objectives.

Three clubs are watching. Aston Villa asked about him in the summer, while Real Madrid and Milan are following the situation closely. His current contract runs until 30 June 2028, so there is no urgency over an expiry date. The problem is different: a player who looked tied down until recently no longer is.

The same question the stands are asking

What matters here is not the money. It is the reason the talks stopped. When a player of this importance wants to know where the club is going first, he is asking the same question the Maradona crowd has been asking since 8 November.

Napoli are 10th with 15 points after 11 matches. They are nine points off fourth place, the target Massimiliano Allegri set, and 14 behind Lazio. They have not won in three games, a run that includes a 2-0 defeat to Juventus in Turin and a 4-1 loss in Porto, where the only Napoli goal was McTominay's, in the 43rd minute. January signings depend on one condition: getting within four, at most five, points of fourth place. In other words, the project now depends on the table, and the table is not there.

On this we are clear. Expecting October's best Napoli player, as voted by supporters on the club's app, to sign until 2030 without knowing what team he will have around him is not realistic. Giving him a convincing answer is not his job, nor his agents'. It falls to the people who coach the team and build the squad, and it starts on the pitch before it reaches the office. A contract built on bonuses for team objectives only makes sense if those objectives become credible again.

The first test comes in seven days: Napoli v Torino on Saturday 21 November at 20:45 CET (19:45 UK, 14:45 ET) at the Maradona, the first home game since the supporters' protest. Three days later comes Manchester City at the Etihad.

Every match Napoli get wrong between now and the end of the season raises the price of that negotiation.