The inside story of how Trabzonspor pulled off Salah dealImage source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, Mohamed Salah scored 191 Premier League goals during a nine-year spell with LiverpoolByIan Williams, BBC Sport Africa and Burak Abatay, BBC TurkishPublished51 minutes agoAs Mohamed Salah signed his two-year deal in front of tens of thousands of fans inside Trabzonspor’s Papara Park stadium, the man putting his signature to the contract next to the Egyptian was struggling to keep the smile off his face.The reaction of supporters over the previous few days had already convinced club president Ertugrul Dogan he had pulled off a transfer coup.
“He’s the biggest Muslim footballer in the world. He’s an influential role model,” he told BBC Sport Africa and BBC Turkish.
“We held Salah’s signing ceremony in front of 35,000 people.
“It was clear from everything he did that he felt that love, and he told us as much too. He thanked us.”
So how did Dogan persuade one of football’s megastars to join a club without Champions League football and which has won the Turkish title only once since its heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s?
