Roma wound up with a €50M windfall for Mohamed Salah, but given his current form and the current transfer climate, the Serie A club knows it could have gotten much more.
Mohamed Salah scored his 30th goal of the season for Liverpool in their 5-0 demolition of Porto in the Champions League. After reaching the 30-mark in his first season with the Reds, Salah must be considered the signing of the season.
This is especially true when you consider how much Liverpool paid for the Egyptian. The Reds paid a respectable £34.3m to sign Salah from Roma, which seems a small fee considering some of the other deals that have been agreed for far less prolific forwards.
But in a recent interview, Roma sporting director Monchi has revealed that Liverpool tried to offer even less for the 25-year-old.
"In the end, with bonuses, we got €50m for him, which is a figure I don't feel is the best for him right now," said Monchi (via Football365). "It's still double what their first offer was, and at the time we needed to sell and he already had an agreement with Liverpool, so we couldn’t do anything else."
The deal for Salah's move to Anfield was agreed in June 2017. Since then, record breaking transfers have been completed across Europe which may have inflated Salah's value had the deal be finalized later that summer.
Monchi added, "Then there was the transfers of Neymar and Mbappe to Paris Saint-Germain, who had slightly altered the prices on the transfer market."
Neymar broke the transfer record with his €222m move to PSG from Barcelona in August 2017. Similarly, Kylian Mbappe broke the record for the most expensive teenager in football when his €145m plus-add-ons deal was agreed with PSG on 31st August.
Roma may now feel that they could have got a lot more for Salah, had the deal been completed later. For Liverpool, however, they have got an absolute bargain.