Rumor Mongering: Sadio Mane’s Contract Extension

Oh, how I wish this were real. But it smells like bullshit.

As we have seen time and time again in the world of football, contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and loyalty—aside from the rare Spotted Agger, or Ruby Throated Carragher—isn’t a thing. When a player wants to move, he will force said move, regardless of how many relationships he has to destroy or toys he has to throw out of the pram along the way.

In this climate, contract extensions aren’t so much a sure thing that the player will stay at a club (see: Coutinho’s push for a move away from Anfield less than six months after signing an extension), but rather a move to keep the player happier (read: wealthier) in the short term, and protect the club in the long term (e.g. £142 million from Barcelona).

Following last year’s trip to the Champions League Final, Liverpool execs successfully pushed to extend the contracts of all of our front three—first Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, and then later Sadio Mane. Now, it is being reported that Mane is ready to sign another extension.

Unfortunately, those reports seem to be stemming from an Italian journalist, who, from what I can gather, does not have a connection to the club or player.

The cited €13 million per year works out to £11.5 million, or roughly £220,000 per week. The number on the surface sounds plausible enough. However, Liverpool have been pretty good about keeping wage numbers under wraps recently.

All in all, this sounds more like speculation than actual reporting. A tweet that the journalist can point to as “accurate” when Liverpool do try to extend Mane’s contract, which considering the way the club has treated their biggest stars recently, seems likely in the not too distant future.

But for the time being, I probably wouldn’t give this particular rumor much more thought.