In the fearsomely tribalistic world of modern football, the message is sometimes deliberately misinterpreted because of the messenger delivering it.
But while Liverpool’s detractors sometimes willfully overlook the point being made by Jurgen Klopp on issues such as fixture scheduling, the unrelenting football calendar and an increased demand on players’ bodies, there can be few across the continent who will find fault with his latest stance.
It simply can’t be right that the Saudi Pro League, with its eye-watering riches, are able to navigate their way through their own transfer window unimpeded while Europe’s biggest and best players remain ripe for cherry-picking and their clubs unable to respond until January.
News of Mohamed Salah’s potential exit will no doubt be celebrated by supporters of clubs who the Reds will be battling with at the sharp end of the Premier League in the coming months, but viewing the next week of Saudi player trading with excitement and hope that Liverpool’s record Premier League marksman shuffles off after six decorated years is short-sighted.
Because while it might be Liverpool who are acting as the sitting duck – at the mercy of players’ heads being turned by the astonishing wealth on offer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – it could just as easily be Manchester City, Arsenal or Manchester United next time.
In fact, City – like Liverpool – have already been forced into hastily rehashing their own plans due to the exits of Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte, to Al-Ahli and Al-Nasr, respectively. And if even the treble-winning and impossibly-wealthy Man City are unable to resist the Saudi’s millions, the writing should be on the wall for every other club in world football.
Klopp has been consistent in his message that the transfer deadline for clubs in KSA be brought in line with those across the European markets, reiterating that stance once more in his Friday press conference.
“We have to make sure with UEFA that these European leagues stay as strong as they are,” Klopp said on Friday. “For that you always need help from these kinds of things like changing rules or laws or whatever to make sense.”
It’s a fair request and a view that will no doubt be shared by managers across the continent but there is no question now that there is a new world football landscape and while historic clubs across Europe are able to offer players the prospect of a glittering career, considerable wealth and the respect of football followers across the globe, the bottom line of the Saudi contract is the great equaliser in all of this.
The finances involved have normalised it to the point already where there is barely a shrug at players with the profile of Brazil superstar Neymar effectively ending their elite-level careers at 31 to go and play in a league that plays host to the sort of crowds seen in the National League.
There has to be more than a whiff of embarrassment for players with such vaunted reputations when they line up in the tunnel before kick-off, surely? That is until the wage slips come in, of course.
How long the Saudi Pro League continues to push for the biggest names in the game is anyone’s guess right now but unlike previous attempts to do similar in Russia and China, the finances of a Gulf nation who are determined to diversify their wealth makes it a sustainable project for as long as they wish. That should feel like a scary prospect for European football.
The key issue is whether or not the players who are used to turning out at the business end of the biggest competitions essentially get bored. A penny for Jordan Henderson’s thoughts, for example, as Al-Ettifaq lost 2-0 to Al-Hilal at weekend while he toiled in a midfield three next to Berat Ozdemir and Ali Abdullah Hazazi.
But while Liverpool might have been able to resist the figures on the offer from champions Ittihad on Friday, the wheels have now been greased and it feels, irrevocably, like the beginning of the long goodbye for Salah, who will have just a year left on his deal next summer.
It seems unlikely that a contract that makes him the highest-paid player of all time at Anfield on £350,000 a week will be extended on those terms and the summer window of 2024 will represent the Reds’ last chance of getting a sizable sum for a player who will be 32 in June next year. Salah’s exit feels inevitable, Liverpool’s fight will be to make sure it is not in the next week.
