This October will mark the 50th anniversary of the first time Liverpool and Trabzonspor were thrown together by the gods of football. When they played each other in the second round of the European Cup in 1976 it’s fair to say not many associated with Liverpool were impressed with Trabzon. Bob Paisley described the team hotel as a “doss house”, the ball as “a pig’s bladder” that “was not good enough for blow football”, adding that “teams in the Durham Mining League would not play with it”, and as for the food, well, he’d had “better rations in my bivvy in the Western Desert”, back when he was in Montgomery’s Eighth Army.
Before their first ever trip to Turkey the club had been particularly worried about their hotel, which is why they sent someone out to inspect it. They thought it was acceptable, but as soon as they left town that booking was cancelled and they were moved into another one half a mile away that nobody had looked at. David Fairclough recalled that “the hotel turned out to be right next to a prayer tower” that used “a very basic public address system that wailed out across the town” to broadcast the call to prayer, which was one of the few things not impacted by “continuous electricity failures”. Ray Clemence came to regard it as “the worst European trip” he ever went on. “The pitch had rocks all over it,” he said. “The hotel was awful. We were woken by the noise of farm animals at 5am.” Liverpool lost 1-0 (then turned it around at Anfield and beat Borussia Mönchengladbach in the final the following May).
Trabzon has clearly gone up in the world since then, as evidenced by the fact Lonely Planet now describes the place as “the most sophisticated city in the region”, albeit warning that it is “somewhat louche”. And also by the fact that, in the latest outbreak of Liverpool-Trabzonspor connectivity, Mohamed Salah – a player born not far from Paisley’s Western Desert, as it happens – has agreed to spend the next two years of his life there.
It’s fair to say Trabzon has grown a little more welcoming over the last five decades, though there was no surprise that fans flocked in huge numbers to greet the Egyptian superstar on arrival – this is, after all, a group of supporters that mobbed the airport the day Paul ‘Tall Paul’ Onuachu turned up to sign on loan from Southampton. Ertugrul Dogan, the president of Trabzonspor, gave a statement to the media confirming the transfer. “There’s nothing to say about Mohamed Salah,” he began, rather worryingly. He then proceeded, with crashing inevitability, to find plenty of things to say about Mohamed Salah. “He’s a global superstar,” Dogan roared. “We needed a player like him. Trabzonspor’s recent success is the talk of Türkiye and of Europe. We are trying to send a message to everyone that Trabzonspor can bring whoever it wants to Trabzon.”
Tales of the club’s recent success, including finishing a gloriously distant third, behind Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, in last season’s Super Lig (though they did win the Turkish Cup), might indeed have attracted this particular person they wanted to Trabzon. The promise of €17m a year as well as some kind of deal on image rights and a percentage of kit sales may also have played a part.
The region’s biggest newspaper, Karadeniz Gazetesi, sent a reporter to gauge the mood on the streets. “We couldn’t sleep because of the excitement,” one fan frothed. “I know there are millions of fans like me around the world. He is a footballer and a global brand. I believe he can add much more to Trabzon’s brand value.” It’s certainly a beautiful sentiment, bringing a tear to Football Daily’s eye.
Early indications are however that this deal might work out very well indeed, for Salah at least. As another fan said: “This is a huge transfer. The whole world will be talking about us. I immediately went and bought a jersey.”
“I could write 10,000 words on the problems at Fifa. But the solution needs only three: Infantino must go. I have loved football all my life. I was a professional player for 20 years. And believe me, I have met some rogues in my time in the game. But what I have seen exposed in the last 10 days is the lowest, most deceitful and cravenly self-interested behaviour I have ever witnessed. The man who would do that – the man who would try to force through such major changes just to enrich himself and his friends – is a relic of the game’s past and should have no part in its future. Infantino has debased the office of Fifa president that he promised to elevate. He has lied, deceived and tried to feather his own nest at the expense of the game he is supposed to serve. He has lost the support of his senior staff, his closest advisers, the vast majority of people who devote their lives to this sport and even, it would seem, the Fifa Peace Prize winner. It is too late to save his dignity but it is not too late to save football. He should go. Now” – Tell us what you really think, Luís Figo.
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“Arsène Wenger, in putting “clear daylight” between himself and Infantino, breaking out a riff on his classic “I didn’t see it”. Nostalgia, it’s a hell of a drug” – Derek McGee, and 1,056 others.
“I don’t know why Infantino didn’t call his failed plan Fifa Forward Scheme FFS” – Gill Newman [David Squires did – Football Daily Ed].
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