Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group have big calls to make with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk
While Liverpool have started the Premier League season in remarkable fashion under Arne Slot, the rumbling issue behind the scenes over the contracts of three of its main stars refuses to go away.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah, and Virgil van Dijk all find themselves out of contract at the end of this season, and all three are impactful key players for Slot, all contributing to high levels that would warrant extended and enhanced stays.
The problem for Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group is that such has been the output of the trio that they face an expensive task in retaining their services. There is the understandable expectation from supporters that they will do just that.
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But from a business perspective, the owners will, certainly in the case of Salah and van Dijk, be looking at extensions based upon what the players in question will deliver over the coming seasons, not what they have achieved in previous years. For players who are in their 30s and who will be approaching late 30s by the time any new deals run out, that often means having to take a pay cut.
Selling the idea of a pay cut to players who are still contributing in enormous ways to the club at present, and who have shown no signs of decline, is a challenging one. But for owners the focus is on what the value for money and return on investment for Liverpool looks like in two or three years, and that is the hard-nosed business way of looking at such extensions.
What will likely be a course of action for the club and FSG is heavily incentivising the deals for Salah and van Dijk, linking it not only to competitive success with the team but also personal output as the deal wears on. If the markers are hit then the club will feel they have protected themselves from a financial perspective.
Incentivising contracts is something that has been part of the FSG plan across their sports teams over the years. It provides security when it comes to payroll size but also means that bonuses can be paid out when competitive success arrives, which delivers lucrative sums of money to comfortably absorb such costs.
But players like certainty too, and they will want to get as much for their services as they feel that can achieve in the current market, feeling that they have considerable leverage given the current importance that they have to the ongoing success of the side, and how much it would cost the club to find replacements that could match their level of output at the current market rate. For Liverpool, that would be a hugely costly endeavour.
Maybe more flexibility around image rights could be included as part of a negotiation, but players and their agents will want the best deal possible, and with the fact that there remains huge sums of money to be deployed for the next phase of the Saudi Pro League project, the agents have the ability to point to willing suitors who would pay over and above to acquire their clients, and where age wouldn’t necessarily bring diminishing financial returns.
