Palace ‘to pay Zaha £110k a week as Spurs back off’
Date published: Tuesday 2nd May 2017 10:00
Crystal Palace are preparing to make Wilfried Zaha the highest paid player in the club’s history in a bid to keep at Selhurst Park.
Palace are believed to be ready to offer the former Manchester United forward a deal worth £110,000 a week, according to The Guardian.
The 24-year-old, who penned a new deal last summer, has enjoyed his most productive season to date scoring six goals and collecting 11 assists in his 34 appearances.
And Palace chairman Steve Parish is well aware that the club need to renegotiate Zaha’s deal again to keep him away from the clutches of Tottenham and other circling clubs.
“He did get a new contract last summer,” Parish told BT Sport when asked about a new deal after the weekend’s defeat by Burnley.
“I don’t think it’s about necessarily if other people are interested in him. It’s about the value of the player and the value of the player within the squad. We’ve got other players earning certain amounts and that all has to come into consideration.
“Anybody would accept that Wilfried has developed as a player this season. Six goals, nine assists, by far his best tally in the Premier League. So you’ve got to look at that. As club owners and chairmen, you want to keep everyone happy.
“We don’t want Wilfried just to stay here because we tell him he’s got to stay here. We want him to have the right deal for him, commensurate to where he’s got to in his professional career. So that is what we’ll be sitting down and talking about.”
Spurs made a bid believed to be around £12million up front last summer, but Palace rejected that out of hand, however the Guardian claims Spurs “could shelve their long-standing interest as a result of the Crystal Palace forward’s decision to represent Ivory Coast”.
Zaha has recently decided to pledge his allegiance to the African side and they are understood to be concerned over his participation in the Africa Cup of Nations.
The tournament takes place every two years with the next edition in Cameroon in 2019. It generally makes players unavailable for at least a month from January running into February and Spurs are concerned he would be missing for too long.
That scenario may well be irrelevant though if Palace ensure their survival and lodge a contract offer with Zaha that would be above that of top earners Christian Benteke and Yohan Cabaye, who are believed to command a weekly wage of around £100,000 a week.
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