GdS: Milan offer Theo Hernandez renewal with lower salary – the reasons | OneFootball

AC Milan are ready to make Theo Hernandez an offer to remain at the club and extend his deal, but it reportedly involves a pay cut.

As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) reports this morning, the club have made Theo a renewal offer. The reason is simple: to avoid the risk of a free transfer and regain some leverage when it comes to his future.

The current deadline – summer 2026 – plays in favour of the left-back, who in just over a year could freely choose his next destination. That could be the most ambitious on a technical level or the richest, given that there would be no transfer fee and only money to offer the player.

It is a situation that would also complicate the management of the last year of the his Milan contract, i.e. the 2025-26 season. This is why the club and Theo have spoken again: coincidence or not, for a few games Hernandez has been more involved in the game and less distracted.

There are still too few bright spots to erase a season made mostly of shadows. This is why the proposal to postpone the deadline is there but if the numbers of years increases, those of the salary decrease. It is the consequence of a season below par.

Why Milan’s offer is lower

Having arrived at Milan in July 2019, Theo ran so fast that he drags the whole group along. With his left-sided accelerations he overtook every opponent and is among the protagonists of the 2021-22 Scudetto.

It was the season of his first contract renewal: deadline pushed back to 2026, and a salary effectively tripled from €1.5m net per year to the current €4.5m. After more months as a protagonist, with Milan and with France, he asked for a much richer contract. At the levels of Rafael Leao’s €7m, to be clear.

The current season has inevitably compromised every negotiation. The list of controversial episodes is long: the cooling-break incident against Lazio, the punitive benches, the stolen and missed penalty versus Fiorentina.

Above all, what stands out is the red cards: one for protesting after that game in Florence, and then the one when he got a second yellow card for a dive against Feyenoord that effectively cost a Champions League place.

The captain’s armband was given to the Frenchman and then taken away. Despite everything, he would like to extend his experience in Milan: on the pitch he beat Maldini’s goal record and his two children were born here.

For better or for worse: when Theo was sprinting, the club had granted him a raise; today, after a season with the handbrake on, he will have to ‘settle’ for something less.