Dani Alves will have final say on his Barça future

Dani Alves will have final say on his Barça future

One of the surprising things to come out of Dani Alves' press conference on Thursday was that his contract expires in 2016, not in 2015 as the club had announced when he signed his contract in March of 2011.

The Brazilian signed his first contract with Barça in 2008, signing a four-year deal with a release clause of €90million. In March 2011, after several impressive seasons with the club, Alves improved his Camp Nou salary. He was very satisifed with the renewal which, it was announced, was until June 2015. However it has now come to light that he has a clause which allows him to add another year, therefore until June 2016, and continue with the same economic deal. 

In this situation, Barcelona would have no say on the matter. Meanwhile, the clause of the player, which went to €150m, when he signed his new deal decreases by €25m each year. As of today, it stands at €50m.

"My contract with the club ends in 2016. You can consult with the president if you want and see if anyone says the contrary," Alves assured on Thursday. "I have signed a contract with the club and I have one year more and then another."

Alves didn't go into detail on where the extra year came from. It doesn't seem to be dependent on games played or titles won, so, in other words, the full-back has the upper hand.

What can happen inthe future? It will depend on what happens with the team (titles) and how the player is feeling when we get to June 2015. If he feels good, he could go into his eighth campaign as a Barcelona player, but if they're bad, he may choose not to extend his contract until 2016. He would therefore be free to leave the club for nothing.

In this scenario he could then find another big contract (he would be 32) and a new team would not have to fork out to sign him. Barcelona would be able to offer Alves a new contract, matching the terms of any other potential suitor, if they wanted to keep him; they could even offer him more years at the club. 

Barça have known about this situation for a while. It is for this reason that they have already tied up a deal for Douglas, the Sao Paulo right-back, as revealed by SPORT several days ago.

Whatever happens with Alves, the club know they will not be able to sign another replacement until January 2016. As of today, everything suggests this will be Alves' last season with Barcelona, but he will have the final say.