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Mohamed Salah will remain at Liverpool. The news was delivered with a humorous tagline: “More in than out”. It was a play on words, nodding to Salah’s comments in November when his future on Merseyside felt far more tenuous.
The deal is a two-year extension, with no breaks or release clauses, on terms very similar to the ones that made him the second-highest-paid player in the Premier League behind Manchester City striker Erling Haaland. His previous contract included a basic weekly salary of £350,000, and he earned up to £1 million per week when bonuses and performance-related incentives were taken into account.
Discussions on this latest deal have been a drawn-out process, rather than being a breakthrough ‘moment’, and have taken nearly a year. The path has not been straightforward.
Salah’s representative, Ramy Abbas, does not like discussing sensitive matters on his phone. When Liverpool signed Salah in the summer of 2017, their sporting director at the time, Michael Edwards, and chief scout Dave Fallows flew to Dubai out of respect for Abbas. In late September, Abbas was impressed by Liverpool’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, but was left asking himself whether the club might not be willing to maintain Salah’s level of remuneration.
Hughes had travelled to a second meeting with Abbas in October, but the conversation didn’t move on very far, with Abbas concluding that negotiations had not even really started. He was confident Liverpool would deliver on their promise eventually, but was increasingly beginning to think it would only be done to save face.
Salah was disappointed not to have received a new contract offer, and made his “more out than in” comments regarding the 2025-26 season. Liverpool’s sporting director, Hughes, had taken the view early on in the process that he had no desire to put anything relating to the contract talks in the public domain, reasoning that doing so would only cause issues for Salah, new coach Arne Slot, or the team as a whole.
Around Christmas, Salah told his family that there was a chance they would have to uproot from their Cheshire home. In early January, Liverpool had finally made Salah an offer, but Abbas considered it something to work from. The club seemed more serious, but Haaland’s nine-year contract at City complicated things.
By the end of January, Salah had told his family that there was a chance they would have to uproot from their Cheshire home. For Abbas, there were now two clear options: stay at Liverpool, or agree a deal with the only alternative that could satisfy his financial expectations.
Liverpool seemed more serious, but Haaland’s nine-year contract at City had the potential to complicate things. What was he earning? Abbas understood that any deal for Salah would be much shorter, but if Haaland was setting the rate for forwards, given Salah was outscoring him and playing for a team higher up the table, his wage ought to be competitive with what City were paying the Norwegian.
In an interview with Sky, Salah insisted he did not know which club he was going to be playing for after this season. On Valentine’s Day, Abbas was in a somewhat combative mood, posting on Instagram about too many social media users craving “attention and validation” from people they’ve never met.
The change of tactics was also a reflection of momentum shifting, with progress being made between Hughes and Abbas. Slot was making it clear in interviews that he wanted Salah to stay, and the determination of the player to continue with Liverpool reflected the respect the Dutchman had gained during his debut season.
When the deal was announced, it involved images of Salah sitting on a throne beneath the Anfield floodlights at night. They had been taken the previous evening, when it was easier to get him in and out of the stadium without being seen.
For Liverpool, the announcement was a vindication of the work Hughes and Edwards have done behind the scenes, and of the impression made by Slot since his arrival last summer. The club feel the same will be true of Virgil van Dijk, whose own two-year contract extension is also nearing confirmation.
Salah’s team-mates had long expected him to commit his future to Liverpool, not just because of his contribution this season, but because of the relationship he has struck up with Slot and how positive he has been about the head coach helping to elevate his game over the course of this season.
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