Mohamed Salah’s Ballon d’Or ambition – and why it could help Liverpool in contract talks

Mohamed Salah’s representative Ramy Abbas finds complex contracts quite appealing, providing they are lucrative to his client.

With that knowledge, maybe Liverpool could try and broker a deal that allows the club to publicise their games around the Great Egyptian like he is an illusionist in the circus, promising open-mouthed viewers a front row seat as he shatters the latest record.

On Wednesday night at Villa Park, another one tumbled after Salah became the first player since Lionel Messi a decade ago to score and assist in 10 different games in a single season across the five biggest leagues in Europe. 

It means Salah is in conversation with players capable of extraordinary things, only he has done it in seven months and Messi did it in 10. 

Salah has long wanted to be known as the world’s best footballer, although he plays down the significance of individual accolades, mindful of the importance of being a team player. But given Messi ended 2015 as a five-time winner of the Ballon d’Or, Salah is surely now the leading contender to receive the same award, albeit for the first time.

The bookmakers certainly believe so: he is the current favourite, ahead of Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior, from Real Madrid, and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, although there is time for those odds to shift.

What is undeniable is his importance in Liverpool’s season: he has scored 24 Premier League goals, with the five other forward options between them in Arne Slot’s squad having 26. On Wednesday, Salah became just the fifth player to have scored 15 or more goals and contributed 15 or more assists in a Premier League season, and there is still a third of the campaign to go.

And yet, the Egyptian surely has to contribute towards a collective achievement to increase the chance of any individual accolade coming his way. 

Messi finished 2014-15 with the third-highest number of goals scored in any campaign during his career but he also won the Champions League and La Liga, as well as the Copa del Rey. 

Liverpool are favourites for the Premier League title and they are in the final of the Carabao Cup but history tends to suggest domestic trophies alone would not be enough. Thirteen of the last 18 Ballon d’Or winners have lifted the Champions League or the World Cup in the same year.

Salah knows from his own experiences in 2017-18 where the votes tend to go. That season, he scored 44 times in 52 games for Liverpool, inspiring the team to reach the Champions League final against Real Madrid. In Kyiv, everything that could go wrong did go wrong: he was substituted early with injury and Liverpool lost 3-1, thanks in no small part to a hypnotically brilliant performance by Luka Modric.

A defeat to France in the World Cup final did not stop the midfielder from winning the Ballon d’Or; defeat to a Salah-inspired Liverpool five weeks earlier might have done. In this alternative world, Salah could well have edged out Modric for that year’s Ballon d’Or, instead of trailing in sixth. 

Salah has since twice placed fifth but on both occasions, he was not even the highest-ranked Liverpool player. In 2019, Liverpool became Champions League winners thanks in part to Salah’s early penalty against Tottenham Hotspur. This was a good Salah campaign but not one of his best statistically and it explains why Virgil van Dijk was second and Sadio Mane fourth, with Messi claiming the crown having helped Barcelona to La Liga for the 10th and last time. 

Salah won the 2018 African Ballon d’Or but not the main prize (Seyllou/AFP via Getty Images)

Three years later, Mane was ahead of him again, after captaining Senegal to victory in the Africa Cup of Nations final at Egypt and Salah’s expense. Both players might have been closer to the Ballon d’Or that year had Liverpool not lost another Champions League final, which instead sent votes towards Real Madrid’s victorious captain Karim Benzema, who became the first Arab since Zinedine Zidane to take the accolade. 

Salah tends not to see things through religious, regional or national lines. Nevertheless, Benzema was born in Lyon and represented France. Meanwhile, Zidane was born in Marseille and also represented France. If Salah were to win the Ballon d’Or this year, he would be the first Arab footballer from Africa or the Middle East to do so — as well as the first African since George Weah in 1995.

Salah said in December that the only thing on his mind was winning the Premier League title for Liverpool. Yet he knows where that, and especially the Champions League, might lead for himself. He followed up that comment by admitting he sees himself as “the best”. If that transpires officially, you can only imagine how Egypt would react, a country which has always seen itself as significant on the global stage but has never been able to prove it through its national sport.

Yet Benzema also offers a cautionary tale. The striker slipped from first to 16th in the Ballon d’Or rankings between 2022 and 2023, the year he joined Al Ittihad in the Saudi Pro League. Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time winner of the award, fell from 20th in his last season at Manchester United to out of the top 30 as soon as he signed for another Saudi club, Al Nassr.

Benzema and Ronaldo are older than Salah, who turns 33 in June, but no matter how many goals they score in Saudi Arabia, it will not be enough to impress or capture the attention of voters, despite the country’s attempts to position itself at the centre of world football.

Karim Benzema has not featured in the Ballon d’Or reckoning since moving to Saudi Arabia (Aitor Alcalde/Getty Images)

Which brings us to Salah’s own deliberations over his future. He is out of contract in the summer and talks are making painfully slow progress. Salah, not unreasonably, expects to be remunerated at a level befitting his performances but it is difficult to see where he can earn that kind of money in Europe. Saudi, long-term suitors, would seem to be his only option if he leaves Liverpool. 

Yet Salah must know that if he moves to Saudi without winning the Ballon d’Or in Europe, the award will be out of reach for him in the future — a point that helps Liverpool during contract negotiations if he is serious about being remembered by the game as a trailblazer.

Salah is in an unusual situation, and maybe there is another Messi parallel which is worth bearing in mind. In 2021, Messi’s departure from Barcelona — the club where he had spent his entire career — satisfied nobody. Barca were unable to offer him a new contract due to financial constraints, even though they also knew that losing him would be a grievous blow; while the player himself has not quite been the same since at club level (he has continued to thrive with Argentina). 

Salah and Liverpool are in a similar position: neither want to break a partnership which allows both to flourish. The question is: how do they afford to preserve it?

(Top photo: Dan Istitene/Getty Images)