Weston McKennie is currently not the biggest name under the microscope when it comes to contract talks at Juventus, but he does have this simple fact attached to him: Unless something changes, the American
midfielder who has been at Juventus since 2020, will be out of a contract in Turin.
And as things stand right now, it doesn’t look like things are getting out of neutral.
According to SportItalia’s Alfredo Pedulla earlier this week, contract talks between Juventus and McKennie have gone quiet and “there are currently no advanced negotiations regarding a renewal.” For a player who looked like he could be on the cusp of signing a new, long-term deal at Juventus just earlier this calendar year, it’s a stark change from where things currently stand as 2026 is just a couple of weeks away and clubs who could acquire McKennie on a free transfer in the near future are probably starting to be on high alert.
Pedulla adds that Juventus have — and rightfully so — put Kenan Yildiz’s contract talks at the forefront of the club’s negotiations priority list these days. Juventus director Giorgio Chiellini has consistently said over the past few weeks and months that Juve and Yildiz are both in agreement that they want to get a deal done together, but there are still details to iron out, with new talks reportedly set prior to the new year.
The fact that Yildiz’s contract extension that was first reported about being discussed in the summertime still isn’t done is obviously complicating things because he is the clear-cut No. 1 priority for this club when it comes to getting new deals done with players on the current roster. There is no contract extension more important than the young man who is on the brink of stardom and is a building block for anything good that Juventus want to try and do both in the present and the future the next couple of years.
But McKennie has, again, shown to be a valuable piece to the puzzle under multiple managers over the last couple of years. He did it for the couple of previous managers before Luciano Spalletti, and he’s doing it again with the 66-year-old Tuscan who took over in Turin at the end of October. It’s a story we’re all too familiar with at this point with McKennie, and it was something we thought might resolve itself with a long-term contract earlier this year.
The hope is that Spalletti is able to both guide Juventus into the Champions League spots and bring some stability to a managerial position that has not seen much of that the last couple of years, if not longer. And if that is indeed the case, then McKennie certainly has a fan in Spalletti who would like to see the versatile American stay around even if there’s still plenty of uncertainty about his contract situation.
