Beşiktaş President Adalı Clarifies Mohamed Salah Situation
Serdal Adalı did not wait to be asked twice. With Mohamed Salah unveiled in Trabzonspor colours and social media gleefully painting Beşiktaş as the loser in a transfer tug-of-war, the Beşiktaş president stepped out to slam the door on that narrative.
“We did not want the Mohamed Salah deal, and this must be clear to everyone,” he told Turkish outlets, including A Spor. No softening of the message. No diplomatic phrasing. “We did not sign him, but not because we lost the deal or were unable to bring him in, that talk is not true.”
For days, the story had been simple and seductive: Beşiktaş chased Salah, Trabzonspor swooped in, Beşiktaş lost. Adalı’s version is very different. He insists the club were never truly at the table.
Misread words, twisted story
At the heart of the confusion, he says, were comments from coach Onder. The coach had spoken cautiously about Salah, using the phrase “at the present time.” Those three words, according to Adalı, were turned into something else entirely.
“The coach explained the matter in a clear and respectful way when he said: ‘At the present time’, but his words were understood incorrectly,” Adalı said. In his view, that nuance vanished as the story grew. “We could simply have announced then that we had withdrawn from the negotiations, but the matter was portrayed as if we were a party to the deal and then another club came and snatched the player, and that is not true and it bothers me.”
The irritation is obvious. This is a president who wants it on record: Beşiktaş were not outbid, outplayed or outmanoeuvred. They simply chose a different path.
No one has been able to snatch away any player
Since taking charge, Adalı has built a personal narrative of strength in the market, and he was not about to let the Salah saga chip away at it.
“Since I took on the responsibility, no one has been able to snatch away any player we wanted to sign,” he declared. It is a bold line, and he delivered it as a point of pride, not a throwaway remark.
He also moved quickly to cool any sense of a brewing rivalry with Trabzonspor. “Our relationship with Trabzonspor is also good, and nothing of this kind could happen between the two clubs,” he said, underlining that this is not a feud between boards, whatever the fans and pundits might prefer to imagine.
From his perspective, the transfer window is unfolding exactly as drawn up. “Our deals are going as we planned them, and new players will join us starting next week,” he said. The message is clear: judge this Beşiktaş by the squad that walks out onto the pitch, not by the rumours that bounce around for a few days. “In the end, what will decide matters is what happens on the pitch, while the transfer hype only lasts a few days.”
Trossard, paperwork and a licence scare
While Salah’s name dominates the headlines, the real business at Beşiktaş right now is Leandro Trossard. The Belgian forward has already arrived, and with him came a brief ripple of concern about his registration.
Adalı moved to stamp that out as well. “There is no problem regarding Trossard's licence, the matter was resolved last night, and we are waiting for the documents to arrive from England,” he confirmed. The timing, though, remains tight. “He will not be ready for the first match, but we hope he will feature in the second.”
So the marquee signing waits in the wings, the paperwork in transit, the anticipation building. And yet, even at Trossard’s presentation, Salah’s shadow somehow crept into the frame.
The look, the chants, and the Salah obsession
During Trossard’s unveiling, sections of the crowd chanted Salah’s name. Cameras caught Adalı’s expression, and screenshots raced across social media, dissected as if they were tactical diagrams.
“Everyone talked about the look on my face, but honestly I did not hear what the fans were chanting at that moment,” he said. For him, the whole episode says more about the current obsession with Salah than about Beşiktaş’s actual intentions.
His closing words left no room for ambiguity. “Much was said based on my facial expressions, as if we had lost the deal, but his move was not part of our plans,” Adalı insisted. The twist in the tale, in his view, lies with the player’s camp. “The player's agent did things we had not been accustomed to before, and I think everything went in the end as it should.”
That final line carried a hint of satisfaction, even relief. The president believes time will vindicate the club’s stance. “As time passes the picture will become clear, and everyone will understand why this deal was not completed.”
For now, Salah is a Trabzonspor player, Trossard is waiting on a licence, and Beşiktaş are betting that the real judgement will come not in the frenzy of the transfer window, but when the whistle blows and the season starts to tell the truth.
