Mohamed Salah

[TheHowieLama]

Heh, heh up to date. 

 

When Lionel Messi was set to leave Paris Saint-Germain after 2022-23, reports suggested that his two most likely destinations were Saudi Arabia or the United States. So when he joined Inter Miami in July and decided against signing for a Saudi club like long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo did seven months earlier, some said he made the wrong decision and joined a weaker league.

Well, according to the Opta Power Rankings, that isn’t the case.

The average power rating of Major League Soccer clubs is 73.2, which is above the Saudi Pro League club average of 70.0. Of all top-flight leagues across the world, this places MLS as the 29th strongest – seven places above the Saudi Pro League (36th).

 

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/08/the-strongest-leagues-in-world-football-opta-power-rankings/

[Jurgen Knows]

13 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Heh, heh up to date. 

 

When Lionel Messi was set to leave Paris Saint-Germain after 2022-23, reports suggested that his two most likely destinations were Saudi Arabia or the United States. So when he joined Inter Miami in July and decided against signing for a Saudi club like long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo did seven months earlier, some said he made the wrong decision and joined a weaker league.

Well, according to the Opta Power Rankings, that isn’t the case.

The average power rating of Major League Soccer clubs is 73.2, which is above the Saudi Pro League club average of 70.0. Of all top-flight leagues across the world, this places MLS as the 29th strongest – seven places above the Saudi Pro League (36th).

 

https://theanalyst.com/na/2023/08/the-strongest-leagues-in-world-football-opta-power-rankings/

36th is not a bad starting point. I was expecting somewhere around 50th.

Top 10 is certainly achievable.

 

Thank you for the info.

[TheHowieLama]

Yeah, you are well on your way man.

 

The next step would be for you to actually attend some matches.

[Jurgen Knows]

And according to this link it seems to have climbed up to 27th already … not bad in such a short period … seems to be heading on its way to the top 10 if you ask me …

 

https://www.givemesport.com/what-are-the-best-leagues-in-the-world/

 

[TheHowieLama]

It is - and in the short term it must puff out every Arab's chest to ease in front of the "checks notes" Israeli league.

 

Get to a couple matches pal - although you have lost ground to MLS you should easily overtake Cyprus (population 1.24 million) this season.

[Jurgen Knows]

Easily

[Mudface]

A million a week- greedy little shit flaunting his wealth and using a once-great club to enrich himself. No wonder Klopp was eager to force him out and Bobby and Mane hated him.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/sep/29/liverpool-mohamed-salah-earning-at-least-1m-a-week-adviser-ramy-abbas

 

Quote

 

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah earning at least £1m a week, adviser indicates

    Figure is total income and not just Liverpool salary
    Salah and Abbas reveal how close forward came to leaving

 

Mohamed Salah’s contract at Liverpool is the catalyst for him to earn at least £1m a week in total income, his lawyer and adviser has indicated. Ramy Abbas Issa told a Harvard Business School (HBS) study, seen by the Guardian, that would be a “conservative” expectation of what the forward makes.

 

Abbas and Salah also detail how close the highest-paid player in the club’s history came to leaving before a new deal, which runs to 2025, was confirmed on 1 July 2022.

Negotiations had started in 2020 and whether Salah would extend was in doubt as late as June 2022 when, he says in the study, discussions with Liverpool had “broken down entirely”.

 

Abbas said: “When you have put your requests on the table and you don’t get anything you’ve asked for, you have to start thinking about parting ways.”

 

Abbas and Salah agreed for the purposes of the study to be quoted as if their words were spoken at the time of the contract talks. Salah is quoted as saying: “I have been positive about the negotiations from the beginning but now that Ramy told me they have not agreed to anything we wanted, I see things differently. I feel like the club wants me to stay, and I want to stay, but it’s hard to get a deal done.”

 

It is notable that HBS has chosen to feature Salah’s contract renegotiation on its business of entertainment, media and sport programme, run by professor Anita Elberse. She prepared the deep dive into the mechanics of the Salah deal with one of her students, Taher El Moataz Bellah; Abbas and Salah granted interviews.

 

Abbas will talk on Monday at the semester-long version of the course for MBA students. A four-day executive edition has attracted numerous high-profile football figures. Previous attendees have included Gerard Piqué, Kaká, Edwin van der Sar and Clarence Seedorf.

Elberse’s case studies present a story and invite discussion within the class. They are open-ended, typically finishing on a cliff-hanger, which in this instance was a phone call in June 2022 between Abbas and Salah before the former made the final, make-or-break counter-offer to Liverpool. Abbas was in Dubai; Salah on holiday in El Gouna, a resort town on Egypt’s Red Sea.

 

The study includes Abbas’s take on the negotiations shortly before he made that counter-offer. “We are still very far apart. Mohamed isn’t going to throw away his contract because of a 5% difference in what we are asking for and what they are willing to give – it is much more than that.”

 

Abbas goes on to deliver the killer line that throws unseen light on the scale of the lone figurehead enterprise that is Salah.

“If we find a way to get Liverpool to agree to the salary we have in mind and if Mohamed performs at a level he has achieved in the past seasons …” Abbas says, “we conservatively expect the total amount received by Mohamed and the image rights companies over the next few years from both his playing contract and his image rights contracts to be somewhere between €54m [£46.8m] and €62m [£53.7m] per year.”
 

The study ends with a quote from Salah. “Renewing at Liverpool would be one of the biggest milestones of my career,” he says. “But we have to do this the right way. I’ve learned throughout my career that if you want to be successful, it is important to invest in yourself not just physically but also mentally. That is true on the field, but also off the field. You have to control your emotions and be ready for the pressure.”

 

No details are given about how the decisive meeting went but it is a matter of record that Salah’s deal was announced in pretty short order. In other words, it went well and the reader is invited to conclude that Liverpool agreed to Abbas’s demands.

How much Liverpool are paying Salah is unclear from the study. Club sources believe he earns more from third parties, such as his commercial tie-ups with Adidas, the Bank of Alexandria in Egypt, PepsiCo, Gucci and the real estate brand Mountain View.
 

“Now, Mohamed’s endorsements are [each] in the €4m [£3.5m] to €7m [£6.1m] range – him joining Liverpool was a game-changer,” Abbas says, making it explicit how Salah’s successful association with the club has not only led to a hugely lucrative playing contract but helped to drive other revenue streams. It is no great stretch to see how Salah helping Liverpool to do well and become more visible could trigger bonuses in his deals away from the club.

 

 

Performance-related pay – or variable pay, as it is called in the study – is fundamental. One major issue in Salah’s contract renegotiation was the split between guaranteed pay and variable, with Liverpool making a push for a higher share of the latter – linked to Salah’s starts, goals and assists. Abbas’s counter was that more variable and less fixed had to mean a significant increase in the total value of the deal. “I realise that this would make Mohamed’s contract the highest value contract in the history of Liverpool but he is worth it,” Abbas says.

 

The study examines how the bonuses might be structured and the attendant complications, including whether, in Abbas’s words, “certain team performance bonuses Mohamed receives should be, as Liverpool would prefer, dependent on him scoring a certain number of goals or providing a certain number of assists”. Then there are the intricacies of Salah’s image rights; the levels to which Liverpool are permitted to use them, even potential conflicts between his personal image rights activities and club sponsorships.

What also stands out is something often commented upon at Liverpool: the depth of trust between Abbas and Salah. It is certainly rare to have a non-family member with no other clients represent a global superstar.

 

It began with a chance meeting in 2015 when Salah was at Chelsea and Abbas, who was born in Colombia but largely raised in the UAE, was a part of Juan Cuadrado’s management team. Cuadrado, the Colombia winger, was Salah’s teammate at Stamford Bridge.

“Ramy was there with Cuadrado, I remember we met and he spoke to me in Arabic,” Salah says. “I didn’t get it at first – a Colombian speaking Arabic? So we started having a conversation.”

 

It led to Abbas giving Salah some advice on his loan move from Chelsea to Fiorentina and it is fair to say that things have developed. One final point is unavoidable. Salah has come a long way since he signed his first professional contract as a 13-year-old at Al Mokawloon in Cairo and it earned him a monthly salary of 125 Egyptian pounds or £3.32.

 

 

[Jurgen Knows]

He deserves every penny he earns.

[TheHowieLama]

Imagine what Mane would do with that kind of money...

[Red74]

Should have stayed on the pitch tonight 

[mike23]

I'd have fancied him and Nunez to cause havoc in the last 20 minutes before the Jota red card put paid to that. He was really good again tonight. Should have had a goal contribution for the 13th game in a row but the officials put a stop to that. He also set up another great chance for Diaz just before half time. I'm not really sure what happened there. Diaz just seemed to be really slow reacting to it for some reason and ended up having to stretch. The ball looked perfect. 

[Kevin D]

2 hours ago, Red74 said:

Should have stayed on the pitch tonight 

I wouldn’t have taken him off, myself, but I see why we decided to hold what we had.

[Tarwater]

Salah was great, but, for once, he looked visibly exhausted in the minutes before he was subbed, so I certainly understand the decision.

[Lee909]

Understand the subs, can only assume they really didn't want to use Nunez if at all possible. Salah was superb 

[Mook]

Just now, Lee909 said:

Understand the subs, can only assume they really didn't want to use Nunez if at all possible. Salah was superb 

 

Nunez was stripped to come on when Jota got sent off.

[Lee909]

2 minutes ago, Mook said:

 

Nunez was stripped to come on when Jota got sent off.

 

So he was, forgot that  

I guess they just felt like we had to hold in. Tough choice, but the outlet might have kept sone pressure off. But then barring a lucky own goal we hold out. Feel for Matip, didn't have time to set his feet and had to get something on it. 

[etho]

We had 8 men behind the ball and no attacker. We couldn't bring Nunez on. That match is a shameful shameful farce for the premier league and you just pray that if any good comes out if it is that they can't pursue this vendetta against us any more because it's now there in plain sight. And also that we use this injustice as fuel because we are a top, top fucking team and I truly believe we're in a title race this season now. Spurs are good and will be top four and I would have taken a point before the game, and we are much, much better than them

[El Rojo]

Nunez would have been our extra man when we were ‘only’ down to ten. We’d quite possibly have won.

 

Shocking officiating aside, I hope Jota is disgusted with himself. He owes his team big time. 

[No2]

Mo was brilliant yesterday, as well as I remember him playing in a long time. Everything he done was excellent.

[Bob]

10 hours ago, mike23 said:

I'd have fancied him and Nunez to cause havoc in the last 20 minutes before the Jota red card put paid to that. He was really good again tonight. Should have had a goal contribution for the 13th game in a row but the officials put a stop to that. He also set up another great chance for Diaz just before half time. I'm not really sure what happened there. Diaz just seemed to be really slow reacting to it for some reason and ended up having to stretch. The ball looked perfect. 

It was exactly the same as his goal vs Chelsea on opening day, except from the opposite side. I think the stretch is deliberate as part of the finish, but he got it wrong this time.

[redinblack]

7 hours ago, El Rojo said:

Nunez would have been our extra man when we were ‘only’ down to ten. We’d quite possibly have won.

 

Shocking officiating aside, I hope Jota is disgusted with himself. He owes his team big time. 

At 10 men I absolutely knew we would win. Spurs were shit and had no idea how to handle us

[aws]

Jota cost us that game with his petulance.  We were fairly comfortable with 10 men and Nunez was lined up to create havoc. I thought Jurgen handled everything about that game really well but Harvey seemed a more likely sub as we were trying to keep things neat and tidy.  

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Great to see him getting a goal from open play and a well-struck penalty.

 

[Code]

200 goals before Christmas?

 

 

 

 

[gkmacca]

He's an odd player as well as a great one. There's no arguing about his greatness, his scoring record and all-round contribution speak for themselves. But it's also the case, surely, that his left-footed obsession when on the right wastes a heck of a lot of chances for the team. Doesn't it? These days, especially, my heart sinks when he gets it on the edge of the area because he doesn't seem to dribble these days like he did up to a couple of years ago, and the defenders know to block his progress with his left foot, so invariably he ends up hitting the ball into legs. After his first great phase in the league, the other teams learnt to keep him stuck on the right side of the area, and have grown better and better at doing that, but, aside from the short second phase when he wriggled through them and still scored, no real change has happened from his standpoint. I just think some variation would get him more chances - switch to the left occasionally, have a teammate assigned to draw a defender away and create a gap, just something to shake things up.