Real Madrid's position is built around a salary ceiling the club considers untouchable: no player, regardless of profile, will be offered more than €20million net per season, a policy president Florentino Perez views as essential to protecting harmony within the dressing room, reports OKDiario.
Vinicius's representatives, by contrast, are said to be seeking a signing bonus in the region of €125million to extend a contract that already has a year to run - a figure Madrid regard as simply unworkable given the player's remaining contractual term.
That gulf, rather than any breakdown in communication, is what has stalled progress. Sources at Valdebebas insist there is no concern internally about the lack of face-to-face meetings, since contact between the parties - calls, messages, ongoing conversations - has continued without interruption. The issue is not access to the negotiating table; it is that neither side has shifted from its opening position.
Time, however, is starting to matter. In roughly five months, Vinicius will be free to negotiate with clubs abroad ahead of a move in the summer of 2027 should he not sign an extension before then. Real Madrid say that looming deadline will not change their approach: the club would rather sell before losing him for nothing than break its wage structure to keep him.
So far, though, no rival club has come forward with an offer capable of meeting his financial demands, which limits the urgency on either side to compromise.
Barring a shift in position from one party or the other, the most likely outcome is that Vinicius continues at the Bernabeu this season and enters the final year of his contract with the situation still unresolved.
Real Madrid maintain the door to a renewal remains open, but only on their terms - and for now, those terms and the player's demands remain far too far apart to suggest an agreement is close.