Where Turkish clubs found this money

He is not an outlier. Romelu Lukaku went to Fenerbahce. Mason Greenwood, Leandro Trossard, Nathan Ake and Dusan Vlahovic all moved to Turkish clubs in the same window.

Five years ago that list would have read as a joke. Now it is a transfer market.

The money is not new, the direction is

Turkish clubs have always spent. What has changed is who they outbid. A decade ago Fenerbahce and Galatasaray signed players Europe had finished with. This window they signed players European clubs still wanted, and paid enough to hear yes.

Where the money actually comes from

Four things, and only the first is unusual.

Television money that goes further at home than abroad. The Süper Lig's domestic rights are worth a fraction of the Premier League's in euros. But Turkish clubs pay most of their costs in lira and only part in euros, and a league that fills stadiums every week has a revenue base that does not depend on selling abroad.

Sponsorship that is not only sponsorship. Turkey's biggest clubs are member associations with enormous supporter bases and deep ties to domestic business. A shirt deal is rarely only a shirt deal.

Contracts that look smaller than they are. Signing fees, image rights and staged payments do more work in Turkish deals than in most of Europe. The wage that reaches the press is only part of it.

Tax. This is the quiet one. A player negotiates what lands in his account, and the gap between what a club spends and what he receives is narrower in Turkey than in England, Spain or Italy. The same money out of the club's account becomes a bigger number for the player.

Why a player says yes

The honest answer is that Saudi Arabia changed what a move like this is allowed to look like. Once the Pro League made it ordinary for a player still near his peak to leave Europe for money, the stigma stopped biting. Turkey is closer, its football is watched, and the Champions League is reachable in a way it is not from Jeddah.

For Salah there is one more thing. Trabzonspor are not buying a name to fill a stadium. They are a club that has spent years trying to prove it belongs in the same conversation as the three from Istanbul, and they have just done something none of them managed this summer.

What to watch

Whether this holds depends on something the transfer coverage does not answer: what happens when the first of these contracts has to be renewed rather than signed. Turkish clubs have a long history of spending beyond their income and restructuring afterwards. The transfers are real. The question is whether the wage bill behind them is.

Arsenal's record transfer of Gabriel Martinelli collapsed this week when the player turned Galatasaray down. That is the other half of the story, and it is worth remembering when the next name is announced: Turkish clubs are now in rooms with players who can still say no.