How Mohamed Salah ended up at Turkey’s fourth biggest club: A sales pitch from a former Man United star, rivals saving face, feeling the love after Liverpool woe – and a chance to put Trabzon on the global stage

If there is one thing Turkish clubs hate, it’s the perception that they are second best to any of their rivals.

When Daily Mail Sport visited the home of one of Turkish football’s biggest executives a few years ago, we learned that the infighting between clubs was ferocious. That will never cool.

So, in June, when the Mohamed Salah stakes began to seriously heat up on the prospect of moving to Turkey, it was Fenerbahce that, insiders at the Istanbul club said, were front of the queue.

‘He was very keen on coming to Turkey. The meetings we had were extremely positive,’ Fenerbahce executive Ertan Torunogullari claimed.

‘I believe that if the new management makes such a request, Salah will wear the Fenerbahce jersey.’

But well-placed sources over at Galatasaray have since claimed that it was in fact they who got approached first for the chance to sign Salah, only to never bother pursuing the Liverpool legend due to what Daily Mail Sport was told were unacceptable contract demands. You can’t miss out on a global superstar if you rule yourself out of the race first.

Step forward Besiktas, the final member of the Istanbul Big Three that, in the view of many in Turkey, was the No 1 choice for Salah.

A deal had been verbally agreed, claimed Besiktas president Serdal Adali, only to pin the blame on its collapse on Salah’s decade-long agent Ramy Abbas.

‘The agent raised his commission to unbelievable figures, reaching about 35 per cent,’ Adali claimed last month. ‘From our side, such a percentage cannot be accepted under any circumstances and we do not believe that Salah is aware of these figures [as] we are only negotiating with Ramy Abbas.

‘Mohamed Salah had given his approval for this transfer, and his agent initially responded positively to our offer. Salah spoke to our technical director and sporting director and gave his approval, but later, when it was written in the media the transfer had been completed, the agent raised the financial demands.’

So, again, no deal. Fast forward to this week, when Salah put pen to paper on a two-year deal with Trabzonspor, rocking Turkish football to its core, and Besiktas, of course, ’didn’t want’ to move for Salah. Of course they didn’t. Saving face, remember?

‘We weren’t outmanoeuvred; we didn’t want the transfer,’ Adali claimed.

‘I’ve made many such transfers; the hype lasts only three or five days. Two weeks later, when we step onto the pitch, everything will be clear. We’ll all see what happens next season.’

But the big questions for many are how and why has Salah, one of the Premier League’s greatest ever players, ended up in Turkey, playing for the country’s fourth biggest team? The answer is one with multiple layers.

Clubs in Saudi Arabia were not shy about their interest, and the money available there could have blown offers from other clubs out of the water. 

But continuing to play in European competition was vital for Salah and while a significant reduction in wages – which was never considered – could have opened the door to UEFA Champions League offers in Spain and Italy, Trabzonspor, with the help of some of its current stars, put forward a package to have Salah spearheading a team in the UEFA Europa League as the highest paid player in Turkey, surpassing Victor Osimhen at Galatasaray.

It is understood that Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana, on loan at Trabzonspor for the second successive season, contacted Salah for secret talks to put forward a sales pitch for the Black Sea club.

The Cameroonian is believed to have made a compelling pitch which sources familiar with the talks feel was significant in helping convince Salah. Egyptian team-mate Mahmoud Trezeguet also put together his own Trabzonspor pitch as part of a cleverly co-ordinated recruitment drive.

Trabzonspor first reached out to Salah’s representatives during the World Cup but found the competition fierce and so fell back, only re-entering the stakes in the past 10 days when the path to prosperity cleared. In the space of five days, while Salah was holidaying in Mykonos, everything was agreed. It is a move all parties believe can be the key to breaking up Istanbul’s Big Three.

‘If Trabzonspor wants to, it can bring players of all levels from all over the world here,’ Trabzonspor President Ertugrul Dogan told Turkish outlet TiviBu. ‘Hopefully, we will be in the title race this year.’

There, too, lies one of the motivations, beyond the fact top European clubs were unwilling to get close to the financials offered by Trabzonspor. Salah has the chance to help Trabzonspor win only their second Super Lig title since 1984. It’s not the riches of Saudi Arabia, nor is it the historical prestige of, say, one of the Milan giants. But it is a chance of legendary status in one of the most intense footballing countries in the world.

Trabzonspor have won the Turkish top flight seven times – they last won it in 2022 – but are ranked 146th by the European Football Clubs ranking, placing them between Latvia’s RFS Riga and Iceland’s Vikingur Reykjavik from Iceland.

Overthrowing Galatasaray – who have won the last four league titles and are pushing for an unprecedented five straight – with Salah at the helm would arguably be one of the Egyptian’s greatest accomplishments.

Speaking at his unveiling on Thursday at a sold-out Papara Park, a beaming Salah, who trained with his team-mates for the first time earlier in the day, opened up on his move.

He said: ‘The last couple of days, it’s an experience I’ve never had in my life. I want to thank you guys for being here today and yesterday – you showed me so much love and I never expected that reception. 

‘I’m here to win, I want to win something with this club because you have showed me so much love.

‘I really appreciate that, I want to thank the president for making it happen. I’m very happy to be here and I can’t wait to see you on the pitch.’  

In Trabzon, a city of 300,000, there is also a feeling that beyond the football, this is a moment, a move, that can put the city onto the global stage like nothing else.

Sources explained how the club pre-ordered 100,000 jerseys in anticipation of Salah mania and when the official website crashed on Wednesday due to a traffic overload as fans scrambled for season tickets and jerseys, estimates for sales rose closer to 300,000 jerseys. 

Salah’s £14.5million-a-year contract, which will be further boosted by more than £3m in bonuses, means he will get a 20 per cent cut of any ‘Salah 10’ merchandise sold.

There is the tourism side of the pitch, too, that was factored into Operation Salah.

On Wednesday, as Salah touched down in Trabzon to a rabid crowd of 25,000 who lit flares and danced in the streets until the early hours, Turkish politician Adil Karaismailoglu announced that charter flights from Cairo to Trabzon have begun.

On Wednesday, the first ever direct flight between Cairo, the capital of Salah’s homeland, and Trabzon, saw 120 Egyptian tourists arrive in the Turkish city. Thousands more are expected to book the trip to see the 34-year-old in action.

‘I am so happy to be in this incredible atmosphere. I can’t put into words how surprised I am,’ Salah, who reached an agreement with new team-mate Ernest Muci to take the No 10 shirt from him, said on Wednesday.

‘There are 25,000 people here; I don’t remember ever seeing anything like this before. Seeing such love and attention makes me very happy. I’m even struggling to put it into words.’

Struggling to put it into words is apt, too, for the people in Trabzon, in Istanbul, in England, in Egypt, and in the United States, where Sporting Kansas City, owned by Peter Mallouk, the son of Egyptian immigrants, was ready to give Salah the Lionel Messi treatment and make him Major League Soccer’s second-highest paid player, only for the pull of European football to dash any hopes.

To figures such as Jamie Carragher, going to Turkey is incomprehensible for Salah, who is only two seasons on from being the Premier League’s best player en route to a league title.

But that’s just it. It doesn’t have to make sense to Carragher, or to Mallouk, or those of us in England who expected a more significant move. Salah left Liverpool wanting to feel the love again and in Trabzon, where fans will bow at his feet, that’s exactly what he’ll get for the next two years.

‘We do not know where Mohamed will play next season. This also means that no one else knows,’ Abbas said back in March.

Nobody gave Trabzonspor a chance. Now, overnight, there is talk of a league and cup double as tourism booms, shirts fly off the shelves, sponsors are fighting for position, and all Salah needs to do is smile.