When news broke in the summer that Saudi football side Al Ittihad were chasing Mohamed Salah, but had been turned down, there was considerable sympathy for the player.
Here was a footballer, a true superstar, 31 years old at what might be the start of the down slope of his career, who was being denied the chance by his club to rake in mega-millions. He had given Liverpool years of extraordinary service; few would quibble if he felt the need to move on and cash in.
Reports suggested that the striker was to be paid £1.5 million a week by Al Ittihad, enabling him to join Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar as the poster boys of the Saudi Pro League. Liverpool were to receive £100m straight away, with another potential £50m coming in add-ons. Still, the English team refused; Salah was theirs and he was going nowhere.
In Liverpool’s start to this season, Salah has been outstanding, playing six matches (before Saturday's game against Spurs), scoring three goals and making four assists. That compares with 38 league games in 2022-23, in which he netted 19 times and made 12 assists. His best season for goals was in 2017-18, when he played 36 and scored 32.
It's the other statistic that has got the commentators purring and the fans cheering. Once a player renowned, perhaps unfairly, for going for goal and missing, when he could have passed, Salah has become more generous. His rate of assists has risen. So much so that if he keeps it up, this season he could make over 20 goals for others. This, in addition to those he scores himself.
In essence, Salah has become more of an all-rounder, which means he is extremely precious indeed. Which is why it should come as no surprise that this rarity of a sportsman is earning at least £1m a week while at Liverpool. Contrast that with the first professional contract he agreed to as a 13-year-old at Al Mokawloon in Cairo, which paid him a monthly salary of 125 Egyptian pounds or around £3.
His added value explains as well why Liverpool were so reluctant to sell him, even for £150m. They could have used that cash to buy two strikers for £75m each – at that price, the new buys would be good. But what the figures are increasingly saying is that there is only one Mo Salah - a player who not only scores but makes telling passes - and currently, he is irreplaceable.
News of his weekly package was revealed by Salah’s lawyer and advisor, Ramy Abbas Issa, in a Harvard Business School report seen by The Guardian. That £1m-a-week is, says Abbas, a “conservative” sum.
The study forms part of Harvard’s entertainment, media and sports programme, run by Professor Anita Elberse. She focused on the Salah transfer negotiations leading to the signing of his new contract with Liverpool in July 2022 (it runs until 2025) with a student, Taher El Moataz Bellah. Uniquely, Abbas and Salah agreed to co-operate.
-
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah scores his side's opening goal from the penalty spot against West Ham at Anfield on Sunday, September 24, 2023. AP -
Mohamed Salah celebrates after scoring Liverpool's first goal against West Ham. Getty -
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah fights for the ball with West Ham United's Emerson Palmieri. PA -
Darwin Nunez of Liverpool scores his team's second goal. Getty -
Darwin Nunez after scoring Liverpool's second goal. Getty -
Liverpool players celebrate Darwin Nunez's goal. Reuters -
West Ham's Jarrod Bowen, bottom, scores his side's opening goal. AP -
West Ham's Jarrod Bowen after scoring at Anfield. AP -
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp at Anfield on Sunday. EPA
Abbas is himself a stand-out, as an adviser to a footballing icon who is not an immediate member of the player’s family and does not have other clients (presumably, Abbas’s percentage of Salah’s remuneration renders that unnecessary).
They met by chance in 2015 when Salah was at Chelsea and Abbas, who was born in Colombia but grew up in the UAE, belonged to a team looking after Juan Cuadrado, the Colombia winger and Salah’s teammate. “Ramy was there with Cuadrado, I remember we met and he spoke to me in Arabic,” Salah says. “I didn’t get it at first – a Colombian speaking Arabic? So, we started having a conversation.”
It resulted in Abbas giving Salah advice on his loan move from Chelsea to Fiorentina and their relationship blossomed from there.
They took part in the Harvard discussion as if the negotiations were continuing, speaking in the present tense. They end with a phone call in June 2022 between Abbas and Salah, before the former made a final, make-or-break counteroffer to Liverpool. Abbas was in Dubai; Salah on holiday in El Gouna, the Egyptian Red Sea resort.
Says Abbas: “If we find a way to get Liverpool to agree to the salary we have in mind and if Mohamed performs at a level he has achieved in the past seasons…”
He adds: “We conservatively expect the total amount received by Mohamed and the image rights companies over the next few years from both his playing contract and his image rights contracts to be somewhere between €54m [£46.8m] and €62m [£53.7m] per year.”
How much, exactly, Liverpool are rewarding the player is not revealed. But Abbas says: “Now, Mohamed’s endorsements are [each] in the €4m [£3.5m] to €7m [£6.1m] range – him joining Liverpool was a game-changer.”
At present, he has commercial ties with the likes of Adidas, Bank of Alexandria, PepsiCo, Gucci and Mountain View. Taking Abbas’s words at face value, Salah is collecting around £25m a year on top of his Liverpool wages.
That would see Liverpool paying him £25m a year or £500,000 a week. It is an eye-watering amount, possibly making him the highest-paid player in the Premiership (only Erling Haaland of Manchester City is likely to be at that level). But the Harvard study makes clear how what Salah receives from Liverpool is broken down, between his guaranteed or fixed pay and his variable or performance-related pay.
Significantly, in the new deal, Liverpool wanted that latter category to represent a higher proportion of his overall package. Abbas used their wish to push up his total worth. “I realise that this would make Mohamed’s contract the highest value contract in the history of Liverpool but he is worth it.”
Abbas adds that “certain team performance bonuses Mohamed receives should be, as Liverpool would prefer, dependent on him scoring a certain number of goals or providing a certain number of assists”.
It leaves Salah as one of the richest players in world football, behind Ronaldo but alongside Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Haaland and Harry Kane in the uppermost tier.
Liverpool also got what they wanted: a player who not only scores goals but makes assists. Everyone is happy. Except of course, the Saudis, who could yet return with a higher bid when the next transfer window opens. They may go up to £200m, and Liverpool may succumb. For now, though, Salah is staying put, and scoring and passing.
Chris Blackhurst is the author of The World’s Biggest Cash Machine – Manchester United, the Glazers, and the struggle for football’s soul, to be published by Macmillan on October 26, 2023.
