There was always a sense this would be how it would end. That not in a million years would Liverpool deliberately part ways with Mohamed Salah, their Egyptian king most responsible for the enviable position the club finds itself in these days: on the brink of a Premier League title. That Liverpool would sign Salah to a new contract was as assured as night follows day.
In the end, it did not take a million years, but it sure felt like it.
The long, drawn out wait came to an end on Friday 11 April when the 32-year-old Salah put pen to paper on a new deal which will keep him at Anfield until 2027.
Salah’s deal is understood to be worth around £25 million per season which works out to £480,000 a week. Before Friday, he was making £350,000 a week (Erling Haaland is the Premier League’s best paid player on a basic wage of £500,000 a week, with Liverpool making Salah the second highest).
“Of course I’m very excited,” Salah told Liverpoolfc.com. “We have a great team now. Before also we had a great team. But I signed because I think we have a chance to win other trophies and enjoy my football.
“It’s great. I had my best years here. I played eight years, hopefully it’s going to be 10. Enjoying my life here, enjoying my football. I had the best years in my career.”
Actually, Salah has had one of the best careers of any player. So far this season, he has scored 32 goals in just 46 appearances in all competitions – 27 of which have come in the Premier League, making him the division’s leading marksman. These strikes have been supplemented by 22 assists for his teammates. Only his 44-goal debut year for Jurgen Klopp compares.
He has won three Golden Boot awards as the Premier League’s top scorer and is set to win the accolade for a fourth time this season with six more goals than Manchester City’s Haaland with six matches remaining.
Scoring 243 goals across 394 appearances - outright third in the Reds’ all-time top scorers list - Salah has been voted as the league’s player of the year twice.
Triumph in the league this year would be the second Premier League title of Salah’s career, adding to the Champions League, FA Cup and two League Cup trophies he has won with Liverpool.
Salah’s 184 goals in the English top flight is the joint fifth highest in Premier League history, while he also now sits in the top 10 for assists.
By posting all these monster figures, Salah has cemented himself as a Liverpool icon since his transfer from AS Roma in the summer of 2017. Remaining in Liverpool may have seemed obvious, a forgone conclusion, but for a long while it was not.
In September last year, he said in a Sky Sports interview it was his “last season” at Anfield because nobody at the club had talked to him about a new contract.
Two months later, following a win at Southampton, Salah stated he was “disappointed” at not having been offered a new deal by Liverpool and that he was “probably more out than in”.
In January this year Salah again spoke publicly about his contract situation when he said the two parties were “far away from any progress”.
Salah rarely talks to reporters about his contracts or anything else - in Southampton it was only the third time in seven and a half years he had stopped to speak to journalists. Hanging out the dirty laundry for all to see in such rare manner seemed to be a plea by a player desperate to stay in Liverpool but who would not wait forever. The impossible – Salah leaving Liverpool – suddenly seemed possible.
Fingers started to point at the owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), and new sporting director Richard Hughes. Many saw Liverpool not heeding Salah’s growing frustration as a huge risk given he could have signed a pre-contract with overseas clubs from 1 January.
One such club could have been Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia. Liverpool rejected a Hilal offer worth a reported £142 million in 2023. These days the money had jumped to a reported £500 million.
The financial lure of a move to Saudi Arabia was clear. Bagging one of the greatest and most recognisable Arab footballers would have been, for all parties, a tremendous boon.
Liverpool management had to act but apparently it wasn’t that easy. “We cannot pay the same wages across the board as Real Madrid,” senior Liverpool figures have sung in unison for 15 years. That meant that Liverpool’s top brass could not just get out a blank check and let Salah write whatever numbers he fancied. The contract had to be in keeping with their principles, one being not handing players over 30 years of age lucrative new contracts - no matter how good they are. Salah will be 33 in June.
The money which remained after a Salah deal also had to still allow the club to aggressively attack the summer transfer market.
There was also the matter of having the club’s best three players out of contract. Defenders Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold are also out of contract this summer, with Alexander-Arnold reportedly linked with a move to Real Madrid. A similar conclusion to that of Salah for Virgil van Dijk’s contract negotiations is thought to be imminent.
Probably Liverpool’s biggest inherent fear was how long could Salah still play at his peak. One need only look at Kevin De Bruyne at Manchester City this season, a legendary footballer who could no longer consistently perform to hitherto world-class levels.
But Salah’s form was the compelling evidence required that he is an exceptional footballer for whom an exception must be made.
Even Salah’s recent dip in form outlined his importance: when he stopped scoring, Liverpool started losing.
All players drop off at different rates, and very few leave top clubs at the top of their game. The two-year contract offered Salah a level of security players of his age are not often afforded.
If money was Salah’s guiding light, he’d have left Liverpool for the Saudi Pro League. Saudi Arabia would have been a goldmine for Salah financially, but it could not offer the biggest honours in the game, something he can still pursue at Liverpool. It’s the sporting challenge that drove Salah’s decision.
He put sporting ambition ahead of his wallet.
So, Salah got what he wanted and so did Liverpool. Apparently, saying nothing in public did not mean the club was doing nothing in private. Liverpool’s quiet approach ultimately paid off. The club calculated that while Salah might find more money elsewhere, when it comes to the whole package, no other club was more attractive.
One wonders if the dance of the past eight months was really necessary. It seems the conditions had to be just right before a middle ground was finally reached between a hugely popular player and his hugely popular club.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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