Liverpool star Mohamed Salah puts an end to transfer saga with new long-term contract | Football | Sport
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has put an end to his long-running contract saga by signing a new deal with the Reds. Fans were fearful that the Egyptian could leave this summer, or depart next year for free, but he has done what Sadio Mane decided against by committing his future to Anfield.
Salah’s camp had been engaged in negotiations with Liverpool for over a year amid claims that the club were not willing to meet his wage demands. Tension was increasing among the fanbase with the flying winger approaching the final year of his deal with the Reds.
But out of the blue, Liverpool’s latest contract offer seems to have done the trick and Salah has now put pen to paper on a three-year extension until 2025. “I feel great and [I am] excited to win trophies with the club,” said the 30-year-old. “It’s a happy day for everyone.
“It takes a little bit of time, I think, to renew, but now everything is done so we just need to focus on what’s next. I think you can see in the last five or six years the team was always going [upwards]. Last season we were close to winning four, but unfortunately in the last week of the season we lost two trophies.
“I think we are in a good position to fight for everything. We have new signings as well. We just need to keep working hard, have a good vision, be positive and go for everything again. My message [to the fans] is the players in the team want to give our best next season to try to win all the trophies. As usual, you stay behind us and give us a big push and I am sure we are going to win trophies again [together].”
The announcement was carried out in bizarre fashion, with fans led to believe that the club were in dispute with Salah’s agent, Ramy Abbas Issa, due to a seemingly hostile Twitter exchange. Issa has not been shy on posting cryptic social media messages during the drawn out negotiations that have unfolfed over the past few months, but it quickly became apparent that it was all part of the plan.
Within a matter of minutes, the announcement of Salah’s three-year extension arrived to spark a frenzy among Liverpool fans. The Times claim that the winger’s goal-scoring exploits have earned him a mammoth contract of £350,000-a-week, making him one of the highest-paid players in the Premier League and the highest in the Reds’ history.
Sporting director Julian Ward supposedly flew out to join Salah on his summer holiday so that the deal could be ironed out. And it will come as a huge boost to Jurgen Klopp and the club’s fans, with the forward picking up his third Premier League Golden Boot last year with an impressive 23-goal haul.
The development means that Salah will form an integral part of Klopp’s rejuvenated frontline next term, with Sadio Mane now a Bayern Munich player and Darwin Nunez the Reds’ new record signing. Salah has arguably achieved legendary status at Anfield already with 156 goals in 254 games, and his legacy could be cemented even further over the next three years.
