Breaking: Christian Benteke officially signs contract extension with D.C. United through 2025
Featured image courtesy of D.C. United, Hannah Wagner.
Talented veteran striker Christian Benteke will be staying in Black-and-Red!
Benteke just inked a contract extension with D.C. United through the end of 2025, with an option for 2026. He joined D.C. United in 2022, during head coach Wayne Rooney’s tenure, after spending ten seasons in the English Premier League (EPL). Benteke’s EPL clubs include Aston Villa, Liverpool, and Crystal Palace.
At D.C. United, Benteke has consistently been one of the team’s top performers, bringing experience and tenacity to the squad. With 17 goals and five assists, he is in contention for the 2024 Golden Boot, sitting in second place behind Cristian Arango of Real Salt Lake.
Ally Mackay, D.C. United General Manager and Chief Soccer Officer said, “Christian is an incredible playmaker, and he has consistently demonstrated that he is one of the best forwards in MLS. “He is a physically dominant presence in the air and has been one of the top goal scorers and biggest threats in the league since his arrival in 2023. It was pivotal for us to keep Christian at the club for both his on-field talent and his leadership in the locker room. We are very excited to keep Christian with us for another season and we look forward to him continuing to make an impact at this club.”
Christian Benteke’s experience and leadership have been critical for the team during a topsy-turvey 2024 campaign. He has been a source of stability and focus for the team, encouraging resilience while pursuing high standards of play.
Head coach Troy Lesesne said, “Christian is one of the most dominant forwards this league has ever seen but what people don’t see is how hard he works on a daily basis to be at his best. That mentality permeates across the team and he leads by example both on and off the field. We are delighted to have Christian’s presence on the field and his leadership at the club next season and I look forward to continuing to coach and learn from Christian in 2025.”
We look forward to another season of Benteke’s incredible leadership and performance at D.C. United!
Let us know your thoughts about Benteke’s contract extension in the comments!
Good job re-signing him. Even though he’s aging, it doesn’t seem to effect his performance in the box.
Great! He has been a fantastic player and looks to be a great teammate too
Ditto that
So, practically speaking, what does this change? I get tying him up for next year, but didn’t his old contract have a club option for 25 and an option for 26? So, we’re formalizing next year, and keeping the 26 option on the table, right? Glad we don’t have a protracted conversation around his option for next year, and I hope for his sake he got a raise out of the deal, but this seems like not that much to me.
Maybe I’m being overly pessimistic today. It shouldn’t be 100 degrees this late in the summer, it makes it hard to enjoy nice things : )
His old contract was through 24 with an option for 2025. This just extends it a year which in all honesty isn’t bad considering the clip he’s been on.
For some reason I thought the old contract had two option years (25 and 26) but I must have been thinking of something else. Agree it’s all good, just not sure how much it changes. I expected we’d pick up the option next year, and now it’s a real year instead of an option. I agree, good news, just wasn’t really sure it did much in practice.
Foremost, it locks him in for next year. It sounds like his pay is staying largely the same (probably with a small bump), but they’ve added a lot of incentives and performance based bonuses. Which sounds like a good deal for DC.
Benteke is only 13 goals away from tying Christian Gomez for the second most goals in club history. He should easily hit that under this new deal. His aerial ability is completely unmatched in MLS. If you have someone that does something absolutely better than anyone in MLS, it’s worth keeping that person around.
He’s also not under contract for a long time. The length seems perfect. I remember how he looked cooked after he first came to us in 2022, and I was so worried about how long he was under contract for. He obviously turned things around in a big, big way, but if he really falls off a cliff next year, then we’re not on the hook with him beyond that.
Deserved new deal and a good bit of business.
Benteke definitely cares about the team — I just wish he’d stop taking cards for overreacting to referee’s decisions.
Me playing devil’s advocate: is he really overreacting? 🫣
He’s not overreacting any more than Rooney did, it’s just the refs are more likely to card him for it than they did Rooney.
Why is an experiment I’ll leave to the reader.
Not overreacting. As the Captain he’s allowed to call out refs when they make questionable decisions but whenever he does, he gets a yellow card. It’s on the refs not on Benteke. He is also right in feeling frustrated about how he gets on the bad end of calls, some of the fouls call on him are laughable.
Always an issue for big forwards. As far as the team goes, I’m more than willing to bet that refs are briefed on how “aggressive” we are (as if our opponents aren’t just as bad) and are happy to start carding us as soon as they interpret that we’ve crossed their threshold.
Funny, Kane doesn’t shellacked by his refs. Big strikers are not, by design, card magnets.
MLS refs simply suck. They clearly have it out for us and have for years. It makes games almost unwatchable. Beyond team performance, it is a serious consideration to dump my tickets. I just don’t need the aggravation of these clowns. I’ve had better refs, often. I like refs. They are fun to watch soccer with.
I never want to have anything to do with the poopshow doggie park refs in MLS.
Thin skins, myopic, delusional, power hungry, dictatorial, favoritism….Garber acolytes….
They refer to our grounds as Audi Field !!!! NOT BUZZARD POINT!!!!!!!
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