Liverpool have excelled this season under the guidance this season and a major part of their success has been the performances of Mohamed Salah, who has hit 43 goals across all competitions for the Reds this campaign.
Egypt international Salah is in the running for the Ballon D’Or later this year with his fine performances, raising the hopes of his nation for this summer’s World Cup, and Roma’s decision to approve a sale last summer has also been criticised.
However, the Italian club’s director of football Monchi has stated that the Champions League semi-finalists had no choice but to sell because of Financial Fair Play Regulations. Quoted by The Guardian, he said:
“We had a need to sell. We had no option but to sell Salah before 30 June. Had we not done that, we probably wouldn’t be here playing the semi-final of the Champions League as we had Uefa closely monitoring us.”
“We didn’t want to sell him but we had no choice. We had to take an offer before the end of the month. He wanted to leave, but we would have kept him if the regulations weren’t against us. When I arrived, the offer [from Liverpool] was €30m but we managed to get it up to almost €50m with bonuses. That is what we could do. The market then went crazy with Neymar, Coutinho and Dembélé.”
Roma insist that the situation has changed this year, damaging Liverpool’s hopes of landing goalkeeper Alisson from the Italian side.
