SALAH’S WAGE DEMANDS ARE A FAIRWAY BEHIND MICKELSON

PHIL MICKELSON has never been everyone’s cup of coffee* – but he managed to put himself in a minority of approximately one when suggesting the world’s top professional golfers were underpaid.

This is the Mickelson (below, left) who has, so far, earned approximately £590million from his sporting career.

Last year, the PGA Tour paid him £6m merely for being the player who drew, among other things, most social-media interaction.

In whichever direction the 51-year-old takes his remaining playing years – and considering Bernhard Langer, at the age of 64, is still earning millions on the Champions Tour, those years could be many – the fortunes will keep rolling in.

Rightly, Mickelson’s argument, put forward when discussing the possibility of joining a £1.5billion Saudi Super

League, was given spectacularly short shrift by all and sundry.

Yet there was one element of Mickelson’s thought process that should have caught the eye of elite sportsmen and women – one element that was particularly pertinent to that other band of underpaid athletes, football’s finest players.

He remarked on how footage of his shot from the pine needles on the 13th at Augusta during his 2010 Masters win would cost £22,000 a second to use. But not a cent goes to him – it goes to executive bodies.

And at that point, you get into the complicated world of intellectual rights, as well as media rights and so on.

One thing is for sure, though. It was Mickelson’s shot. Which got me thinking about footballers’ contracts.

The most significant contract discussion occurring right now centres on Mohamed Salah (below, right), who will add to his global fame if he leads Egypt to victory in tonight’s AFCON Final against Senegal.

It is claimed Liverpool are baulking at £400,000-a-week demands. And it is a lot –

unimaginable wealth to all those who are struggling to make ends meet in this country and the rest of the world.

But Salah is the talent.

His, along with others, are the goals and magic that is selling the Premier League around the world.

His, along with others, are the goals and magic that is earning owners, such as Fenway Sports Group and the Glazers, handsome profits.

His, along with others, are the goals and magic that saw

Premier League TV rights in North America sell for £2bn recently.

Of course, the amounts of money demanded by the Premier League’s best players – set against the austerity that many are going to have to live through in coming times – look increasingly obscene.

But there is a commercial reality that is unavoidable.

The billions will continue to roll into the Premier League and the likes of Salah are the talent and the talent will want a bigger slice of the cake.

If Liverpool have to fork out £400,000 a week to keep him for an extra few years, then so be it.

Because, while only Phil Mickelson would have the audacity to suggest Salah would then STILL be underpaid, he might have a point.

*Mickelson makes millions from his Coffee for Wellness company.