Mohamed Salah has already suggested that he could stay at Liverpool for the rest of his career despite Al-Ittihad’s interest in pursuing a world-record move for his signature. A bid in the region of £150million was rejected last week but Al-Ittihad have reportedly upped their offer to around £215m, with the Saudi transfer window still open until Thursday.
Salah has also been offered a weekly wage of around £2.45m, according to The Sun, which would make him the world’s highest-paid footballer by some distance. It is also said that he would be in line to receive a large percentage of shirt sales and a £55,000 win bonus if he ends up signing for Al-Ittihad.
Liverpool are yet to respond to their latest offer but are unlikely to be keen on selling Salah as they would need to wait until January to land a replacement. The player’s own stance on leaving the club is still unknown, but he has previously suggested that he would have no qualms about staying until he decides to hang up his boots.
Salah revealed two years ago that he would be more than happy to end his career as a Liverpool player, although he conceded that he is unlikely to have the final say on where his future lies.
“If you ask me, I would love to stay until the last day of my football career, but I can’t say much about that,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s not in my hands. It depends on what the club want, not on me.”
He went on to explain that he could not see himself ever playing against Liverpool, which would rule out a move to another Premier League side or a top European club. However, Al-Ittihad are unlikely to cross paths with the Reds in future unless they ever meet in a friendly or at the Club World Cup.
“At the moment I can’t see myself ever playing against Liverpool,” he added. “That would make me sad. It’s hard, I don’t want to talk about it, but it would make me really sad. At the moment I don’t see myself playing against Liverpool, but let’s see what will happen in the future.”
It remains to be seen how the situation will play out over the coming days, with Al-Ittihad waiting on a response from Liverpool before the Saudi transfer window closes on Thursday. The Reds have made it clear that Salah is expected to stay and midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai insisted over the weekend that his team-mate still wants to remain at Anfield.
“You know it is football, everyone is talking,” said Szoboszlai. “We are really happy that he has stayed. We are of course speaking between each other but he wants to stay, he wants to be here and be with us. We are really happy, we need people in the team like him.”
