The inside story of how Trabzonspor pulled off Salah deal

As 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?

Located on the Black Sea coast, the city of Trabzon sits near the border with Georgia in the north-east corner of Turkey.

With a population of around 800,000 people, it is not even in the top 20 when it comes to the country's largest urban centres.

But Dogan claims it has something special.

"I always say this about Trabzonspor and the city - we're the biggest one-club city in the world.

"Salah asked us something like, 'Why should I choose Trabzonspor now?'

"We told him about the city and said: 'You can be sure you will meet a group of supporters unlike any you have experienced before. You'll feel the genuine love those people have inside them'."

Born in January 1977, Dogan is himself a son of Trabzon.

The businessman made his money through a series of different ventures, including real estate and hazelnuts, before moving into the energy sector and specialising in biofuels.

He became Trabzonspor president in 2023, shortly after the club's most successful season in recent memory - having won the league title in 2021-22.

Under Dogan's watch, the Black Sea Storm, as the club is known, have finished third, seventh and third in the Super Lig.

Last season they won the Turkish Cup under coach Fatih Tekke, who is now looking to guide his team into the Europa League, despite a 1-0 home defeat in the first leg of their play-off tie against Hungary's Ferencvaros.

"We are working to make Trabzonspor and Trabzon itself a destination for talented young players from all over the world," said Dogan.

"We want to take them to the next level, to move on to bigger European clubs. Those young players… [combined with] star players… a star in every way, with their lifestyle, their professionalism, their smile, their positive energy.

"Mohamed Salah is a really great example in this respect."

During the off-season, Trabzonspor sold 20-year-old Ivorian midfielder Christ Inao Oulai to Fiorentina and Brazilian forward Felipe Augusto, 22, to Zenit St Petersburg - both for large profits after only one season at the club.

Young players from Albania, Belgium, Cape Verde and Portugal have arrived to replace them, but Dogan wants to continue balancing those talents with experienced names.

Cameroon goalkeeper Andre Onana has returned for a second season on loan from Manchester United, but the deal for Salah is the potential gamechanger.

"The attention it has generated and the level of engagement it has created around the world cannot easily be given a direct financial value," explained Dogan, who has openly admitted that Salah will be earning €17m per year (£14.6m, $19.9m), as well as 20% of any merchandise with his name on.

"Purely from a financial perspective, this transfer has no direct return as such.

"We put up our season tickets this year. We had to make another increase. I told our fans, 'Look, I'm bringing you Salah, one of the biggest stars in the world'."

Dogan says nearly 70% of Salah's salary this year was covered by season ticket sales made within the first four or five days after the announcement of his arrival.

The initial target was 25,000 season ticket sales, but the club now expects to exceed 30,000, while major companies have been calling the president, looking to get involved in Salah-mania.

"We're having important discussions in Turkey, Europe and the Arab world as well."

The news that Trabzonspor had won the race for Salah's signature after nine stellar seasons at Liverpool raised a few eyebrows.

Many had expected the man who sits fourth on the all-time list of Premier League goalscorers to sign a huge contract with a club in the Saudi Pro League like Cristiano Ronaldo or join Lionel Messi in the United States.

But while there was competition, Dogan says the deal happened quickly once negotiations really got going.

"Once we started talking, both sides genuinely approached each other very sincerely," he said.

"We'd actually been pursuing him since the World Cup, but we knew at the start he was also talking to other clubs."

This meant Trabzonspor initially had to bide their time, given Dogan says there is an unwritten rule in Turkey that if one club is holding talks then the others will wait.

"Yes, there were clubs in Turkey who were interested," he confirmed.

"After they said, 'We've pulled out of this transfer', we started talks. I think it took about five or six days to conclude.

"We had the first meeting over Zoom. At that point it was really just the two sides getting to know each other. Then Salah was on holiday - he was in Mykonos - and after that the talks continued again via Zoom."

Trabzonspor finally brought Salah to Turkey for his medical in Istanbul.

Dogan says they decided to hold it there to show the 34-year-old the kind of reception he would get across Turkey, not just in Trabzon.

Thousands of fans were at the airport to greet Salah when he arrived, even though it was in the middle of a working day.

Trabzonspor's new star also made his debut in Istanbul, entering the fray as a second-half substitute in a 1-1 draw against Kasimpasa on the opening day of the new league season last weekend.

He is expected to make his home league debut in Trabzon on Sunday.

"The whole city lives for football," said Dogan.

"Everywhere you go, on every corner, the city gives that player that energy and that happiness."

Thanks to Mohamed Salah, Trabzonspor's president could be smiling for a while yet.