In the frighteningly tribal world of modern football, this messenger’s message is sometimes deliberately misinterpreted.
But while Liverpool’s detractors sometimes willfully ignore Jurgen Klopp’s views on things like game plans, a ruthless football calendar and the increased demand on players’ bodies, few across the continent can find fault with his latest stance.
It simply cannot be right that the Saudi Pro League, with its glorious wealth, can move unimpeded in its transfer window while Europe’s biggest and best players are ripe for the picking and their clubs cannot respond until January.
The news of Mohamed Salah’s potential departure will no doubt be celebrated by supporters of the clubs with the Reds battling for the Premier League title in the coming months, but watching the Saudi business next week with excitement and the hope that the record of the Premier League of Liverpool. goalscorer will remain myopic after six award-winning years.
Because while Liverpool may be a sitting duck – with the staggering wealth on offer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia turning players’ heads – it could just as easily be Manchester City, Arsenal or Manchester United. time Indeed, City – like Liverpool – have already been forced to hastily adjust their plans due to the departures of Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte to Al-Ahli and Al-Nasr respectively.
And if even tripling and impossibly rich Man City can’t match Saudi Arabia’s millions, the writing should be on the wall for every other football club in the world.
Klopp has been consistent in his message that the transfer window for KSA clubs will be compatible with the European market, and reiterated this stance in a press conference on Friday.
“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 with things like changing rules or laws or anything that makes sense.”
It is a fair request and a view certainly shared by managers across the continent, but there is no doubt that it is a new world of football now, and while historic clubs across Europe can offer players the chance for a glittering career, there is considerable wealth to be found. And with all due respect to football fans around the world, the end result of the Saudi deal will be the great equalizer in all of this. The economy has already normalized to the point that players with the profile of Brazilian superstar Neymar are not rejected to end their elite careers at the age of 31 to play in a league that hosts such an audience. in the people’s league.
Surely there must be more than confusion among players with such a storied reputation as they line up in the tunnel before kickoff. Until the paychecks come, of course.
How long the Saudi Pro League will continue to feature the game’s biggest names is anyone’s guess, but unlike previous attempts to do the same in Russia and China, the Gulf nation’s economy, which is determined to diversify its wealth, makes it sustainable . . project as long as they want. This should seem 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.
