Fiorentina seeking €30m in compensation from Chelsea for Mohamed Salah debacle - report

Despite its sudden disappearance off the airwaves, the "Salah-days of Our Lives" soap opera isn't actually over, certainly not as far as Fiorentina are concerned. According to Italian newspaper La Nazione (via Calcio Mercato), La Viola are seeking €30 million from Chelsea in compensation for the Mohamed Salah loan-transfer saga.

This (outrageous) figure comes from Fiorentina's calculations on the loss of profits caused by Salah's absence from their squad this season -- they believed they had (and exercised) a club option to keep the winger for another year on loan; Salah disagreed and moved to AS Roma instead in August (also on loan, at least initially). Added to the compensation sought by Fiorentina are the costs of acquiring Salah's replacement, Croatian striker Nikola Kalinic for a rumoured transfer fee of €5.5 million.

Since the start of the saga back in June last year, Fiorentina have gone from trying to force Salah to stay at the club against his wishes to making threats to other Serie A teams interested in his services to submitting a complaint to FIFA. In January a report from Gazzetta dello Sport claimed that Chelsea would be forced pay compensation to Fiorentina based on FIFA's potential verdict, but nothing of the sort has come up thus far.  How this demand from Fiorentina relates to any FIFA verdict (if any such thing is forthcoming) is unknown, but the longer this saga gets drawn out, the more ridiculous it becomes.

(Meanwhile, Salah's transfer to Roma isn't exactly crystal clear either.  Roma did claim in official documentation that they've signed the player on a permanent basis, but Chelsea seem to have no idea about this -- he's still listed as a loanee.  Stay tuned for more drama.)