Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool in the summer after the club and player agreed to forgo the final year of his contract, allowing the 33-year-old legend to depart on a free to his choice of clubs outside of England. That has led to plenty of chatter linking him to various clubs and leagues.
None of said chatter so far has seemed especially weighty, but Roma have been linked by name while a move to either Turkey or Saudi Arabia has been speculated. A move to the United States and MLS has also been floated as a possibility in some quarters—and that recently led to pushback in Egypt.
Advertisement
There, Egypt national team technical director Ibrahim Hassan responded to talk of Salah heading to MLS by suggesting it would functionally end his international career and that if the player doesn’t stay in a top European league a move to even the Saudi Pro League would be preferable.
Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go over well with MLS honcho Don Garber, who did his best to clap back without directly addressing the Salah-ness of it all given the whole part where nobody has actually seriously suggested a move to that league is on the cards or in the works or otherwise imminent.
“Leo Messi is the most popular player in the world,” Garber said when asked about the idea Salah in MLS would mean an end to his relevance. “He was and still is. I’d be happy to send an Apple subscription to the head of the Egyptian FA so he can watch as many Messi games as he’d like.
“I think that point of view is indicative of what MLS deals with as we develop as a major player. I can remember, not that long ago, Mexican national team coaches saying if you’re in MLS you’re not going to play, but that’s not the case today. We’ve also got two or three players for Argentina in MLS.”
Advertisement
While MLS isn’t punching in the same weight class as top European leagues or even second-tier continental offerings like the Turkish Super Lig or Portugal’s Liga, it’s also fair to say the only advantage the Saudi league would have from an Egytpian point of view is geographical proximity.
Though executive posturing and brand positioning aside (good getting Apple into your answer like a totally normal human being and not a corporate-speak diseased exec, Don), we’d tend to suggest a move to either the Saudi league or MLS would be a retirement-tier decision by Salah.
