Salah move to Roma frees up room at Chelsea for Cuadrado

Mohamed Salah’s unsuccessful stay at Chelsea is drawing to a close, with the Egypt winger set to join Roma on a six-month loan that will become a permanent deal in a move that will speed the pursuit of Fiorentina’s Juan Cuadrado.


The Salah transfer will see Chelsea receive a loan fee of around £550,000, with a payment in the region of £11m to follow in the summer. Roma will meet the player’s wages in full this season, with negotiations between the clubs undertaken despite a dispute over who legally represents the 22-year-old. The man the player claims to be his former agent, the lawyer Oliver Kronenberg, is understood to be preparing a complaint to the Football Association having been frozen out of the talks.

Salah joined Chelsea from Basel, with whom he had enjoyed some eye-catching displays against the London club in European competition, a year ago in an £11m deal but has made only six Premier League starts in the period since and contributed only 30 minutes of top-flight football to date this term. Roma and Real Sociedad had expressed a desire to prise him from Stamford Bridge, with the Premier League leaders willing to sanction his sale, and potentially that of André Schürrle, as they move to secure Cuadrado as a replacement.

Kronenberg, of SPOCS sports consultants, had smoothed Salah’s transfer to England and made Roma’s interest public last week. Yet the player took to Twitter over the weekend to insist he was no longer represented by the Swiss, a former head of Fifa’s legal department. “Please don’t take any news from my ex-agent Oliver Kronenberg and don’t believe any of his words,” he wrote. It is understood that Kronenberg did not negotiate the deal that will take Salah to Italy. Kronenberg declined to comment on Thursday.

Yet SPOCS believes it retained a binding agreement to negotiate the player’s move until the end of this window and intends to write to the FA to air its grievance in the belief that as many as three other agents had been operating on Salah’s behalf to finalise the move to Roma. Pini Zahavi, who has dealt extensively with Chelsea, and Juan Figer denied any involvement in the deal. The other agent allegedly connected with the player, Cristina Marice, did not respond when contacted by the Guardian on Thursday.

Chelsea, who have loaned Nathaniel Chalobah to Reading, will sanction the Egyptian’s departure in the hope they will now have enough time to secure Cuadrado’s arrival. Talks with Fiorentina are continuing, with the Italian club indicating they will consider nothing less than the £26.8m that will trigger the buyout clause in the forward’s contract. The 26-year-old is believed to favour a move to the Premier League leaders and a resolution is anticipated before the deadline on 2 February.

That purchase may also require the sale of the unsettled World Cup winner Schürrle, with Wolfsburg and Borussia Dortmund intent upon luring the Germany international back to the Bundesliga. No formal offer has been submitted by either club and, although Schürrle had initially been happy to remain at Stamford Bridge until the summer, it appears he is more open now to the possibility of leaving mid-season in the hope of securing more regular first-team football elsewhere.

Chelsea’s purchase of Cuadrado may also require the sale of Schürrle, who is now more open to a move.


By Dominic Fifield and Ed Aarons, Guardian