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‘I’m not asking for crazy stuff’: Salah opens up on Liverpool contract talks
Forward wants club to show they appreciate him
Salah keen to be recognised as world’s best player
Mohamed Salah has insisted he is “not asking for crazy stuff” to extend his Liverpool contract.
Salah has entered the final 18 months of his contract, an incentivised deal worth about £200,000 a week, and Liverpool will have to pay the most lucrative salary in their history to secure the prolific forward long term.
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Talks on an extension have been ongoing for months, with Jürgen Klopp involved and Liverpool agreeing new deals in the meantime with Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Jordan Henderson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson and Fabinho. Salah has stated repeatedly that he wants to stay at the club that made him a global star but, in an interview with the latest edition of British GQ, maintains he is not making outlandish demands of Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group.
The 29-year-old said: “I want to stay, but it’s not in my hands. It’s in their hands. They know what I want. I’m not asking for crazy stuff.”
Salah, who is at the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt, believes Liverpool’s offer should reflect what he has given to the club since his arrival from Roma in 2017.
“The thing is when you ask for something and they show you they can give you something,” he said, they should, “because they appreciate what you did for the club. I’ve been here for my fifth year now. I know the club very well. I love the fans. The fans love me. But with the administration, they have [been] told the situation. It’s in their hands.”
Klopp has described Salah as the best player in the world several times this season and the forward, who came seventh in the Ballon d’Or, admits it is his ambition to be recognised as such.
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“If you asked me if this was a drive for me to be here? Yeah, of course. I can’t really lie and say honestly I didn’t think about it. No, I think about it. I want to be the best player in the world. But I will have a good life even if I don’t win [the Ballon d’Or]. My life is OK, everything is fine.”
Salah also reveals in the interview how he struggled mentally during a disappointing spell with Chelsea earlier in his career. He says: “It was so tough for me, mentally. I couldn’t handle the pressure I had from the media, coming from outside. I was not playing that much. I felt, ‘No, I need to go.’”
• The GQ Global Sports Issue is available on newsstands and via digital download on 25 January 2022.
