Beşiktaş President Adalı: We Never Wanted Salah

Serdal Adalı did not circle the issue. He went straight through it.

As the noise around Mohamed Salah’s move to Trabzonspor rumbled on, the Beşiktaş president finally stepped out and cut through the narrative that his club had somehow “lost” Turkish football’s biggest transfer story of the summer.

“We did not want the Mohamed Salah deal, and this must be clear to everyone,” Adalı told Turkish outlets, including A Spor’s website. “We did not sign him, but not because we lost the deal or were unable to bring him in, that talk is not true.”

That line set the tone. This was not a president licking his wounds. This was a president rejecting the very idea that there were wounds in the first place.

Misread coach, miscast story

Adalı’s irritation stems from how Beşiktaş were written into the Salah saga as a defeated bidder. In his view, that story was built on a misunderstanding of comments made by coach Onder.

“The coach explained the matter in a clear and respectful way when he said: ‘At the present time’,” Adalı said. “But his words were understood incorrectly.”

From there, the narrative snowballed. Beşiktaş, it was claimed, had been in the race, then overtaken by Trabzonspor when the Black Eagles backed away. Adalı bristled at that version.

“We could simply have announced then that we had withdrawn from the negotiations,” he said. “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.”

In his mind, Beşiktaş were never standing on the start line for this particular race. They were watching from the stands.

No one has snatched a player from us

Adalı has only been in the job a short time, but he is already protective of his record in the market. The suggestion that Beşiktaş had been outmanoeuvred by a domestic rival clearly struck a nerve.

“Since I took on the responsibility, no one has been able to snatch away any player we wanted to sign,” he stated. The message was deliberate: Beşiktaş choose their targets, they are not outbid for them.

He even took care to underline the club’s relationship with Trabzonspor, refusing to turn this into a public feud.

“Our relationship with Trabzonspor is also good, and nothing of this kind could happen between the two clubs,” he said.

So this is not a war between boards. It is, in Adalı’s telling, a simple case of Beşiktaş being written into a transfer drama that never involved them.

Transfers “going as planned”

While Salah dominates headlines, Adalı is keen to drag the spotlight back onto Beşiktaş’s own business. He insists there is no panic, no scramble, no late change of direction because of one blockbuster move elsewhere.

“Our deals are going as we planned them, and new players will join us starting next week,” he explained.

For him, the real judgement comes later.

“In the end, what will decide matters is what happens on the pitch, while the transfer hype only lasts a few days.”

It is a familiar refrain from a president under scrutiny, but the timing matters. With the league about to start and rivals making noise in the market, Adalı wants Beşiktaş fans to see a club working to a clear script, not reacting to others.

Trossard paperwork and the “Salah chants” moment

On the immediate football front, Belgian forward Leandro Trossard has been another talking point. Questions had surfaced over his registration, but Adalı moved to close that down 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 said. “He will not be ready for the first match, but we hope he will feature in the second.”

Even Trossard’s unveiling could not escape the Salah storm. When fans chanted the Egyptian’s name during the presentation, cameras zoomed in on Adalı’s face. Social media did the rest.

“Everyone talked about the look on my face,” he admitted. “But honestly I did not hear what the fans were chanting at that moment.”

One expression, frozen on screen, became another chapter in the invented story of a president who had “lost” Salah. Adalı clearly sees it very differently.

The deal was never on our agenda

In the end, he circled back to the same point, this time with an extra layer of detail about the negotiations and the role of Salah’s camp.

“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 said. “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 last sentence hangs in the air. No accusations, no elaboration, but a clear hint that Beşiktaş did not like the way the talks were being handled and simply stepped away.

“As time passes the picture will become clear, and everyone will understand why this deal was not completed,” he added.

Trabzonspor have their superstar. Beşiktaş have their stance. Now the only verdict that counts will be delivered where Adalı insists it always mattered most: on the pitch.