Former Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has signed a two-year contract with Turkish Super Lig club Trabzonspor, running until the summer of 2028. The 34-year-old Egyptian international joined as a free agent after mutually terminating the final year of his Liverpool deal following a difficult 2025-26 season.
Trabzonspor, which finished third in the Super Lig last season and will compete in the UEFA Europa League play-offs, confirmed the deal through a filing with Türkiye’s Public Disclosure Platform. Salah will receive a guaranteed €17 million ($19.6 million) per season, structured as a €10 million salary plus a €7 million annual signing bonus, along with performance-related bonuses and a 20% share of revenue from merchandise sold under his name. The club will also pay a 5% agent commission on his gross salary.
Salah arrived in Turkey to a rapturous welcome from fans in Istanbul and Trabzon. He will wear the number 10 shirt. The move comes after talks with Beşiktaş collapsed over financial and commercial terms; Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe showed little interest. He also turned down more lucrative options in the Saudi Pro League and Major League Soccer in order to remain in European football.
At Liverpool, Salah scored 257 goals in 442 appearances, won multiple major trophies including the Premier League and Champions League, and established himself as one of the club’s greatest players and the Premier League’s leading foreign goalscorer. His output dropped sharply in his final season, contributing to the early exit.
The New York Times / The Athletic framed the transfer in part by noting that Salah will be “the marquee star in a modern, Muslim-majority country for the first time since he left Al Mokawloon and Egypt in 2012.”
A Calculated Chapter, Not a Soft Landing
Mohamed Salah’s decision to join Trabzonspor is one of the more intriguing late-career moves in recent European football. It is neither a pure money grab nor a sentimental homecoming. It is a pragmatic, slightly unexpected choice that reveals a great deal about how elite players now navigate the final years of their careers when the very top clubs no longer see them as essential.
Salah could have taken the Saudi route. The money would almost certainly have been higher, the lifestyle more insulated, and the football less demanding. He could have gone to MLS, where a club like Sporting Kansas City was prepared to match significant wages for a player of his stature and commercial pull. Instead he chose a club that, while historic and passionate, sits outside Turkey’s traditional “big three.” Trabzonspor is the fourth power, a Black Sea institution with seven league titles but only one of them in the modern era (2021-22). Choosing them over Beşiktaş after negotiations stalled was a clear signal: Salah wanted European competition and a platform where he remains the undisputed star, not one more expensive piece in an Istanbul arms race.
The financial package is substantial by Turkish standards—one of the richest contracts the Super Lig has seen—but it is not the maximum available on the global market. That matters. At 34, after a season in which his form and relationship with Liverpool’s then-manager deteriorated publicly, Salah still prioritised remaining inside UEFA’s ecosystem. Trabzonspor’s third-place finish gives him a genuine shot at the Europa League group stage. For a player who has spent the bulk of his peak years competing at the highest level, that continuity appears to have carried real weight.
There is also a cultural and personal dimension that is easy to overstate but foolish to ignore entirely. Salah has lived and thrived for nine years in England, a secular, multicultural environment that is hardly hostile to a practising Muslim. Yet moving to a country that is officially secular but demographically and culturally Muslim-majority does change the everyday context. The Athletic’s observation that this is the first time since 2012 he will be the marquee figure in such an environment is factually correct, even if some readers bristled at the framing. Religion was never the primary driver—money, status, and competitive opportunity were—but it is not irrelevant to a player who has always been open about his faith and whose global brand is deeply connected to his identity as an Egyptian Muslim footballer. The reception he received upon arrival, the intensity of the fan reaction, and the commercial potential of his name in Turkey and the wider region all speak to that resonance.
For Trabzonspor the signing is transformative. It is the biggest name the club has ever attracted. Shirt sales, sponsorship interest, and international visibility will jump. The club is attempting to punch above its traditional weight and close the gap on Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. Whether one elite player can shift the balance of power in a league increasingly dominated by the Istanbul giants remains to be seen, but the statement of intent is unmistakable. Salah becomes the focal point of a project that mixes sporting ambition with commercial calculation.
For Salah himself the risks are real. The Super Lig is competitive and physical, but it is not the Premier League. Expectations will be enormous. Every missed chance and every quiet performance will be magnified because he is the highest-paid, highest-profile player in the squad. At the same time, the environment may offer him something Liverpool no longer could in his final months: the sense of being the main man again, the freedom to dictate the attacking play, and a passionate local support that treats him as a conquering hero rather than a fading superstar.
This is not the romantic final chapter some Liverpool fans might have preferred, nor the glittering Saudi payday many expected. It is a deliberate, slightly left-field decision by a player who still believes he has elite football left in him and is prepared to go to a less fashionable destination to prove it. Whether it becomes a successful late-career renaissance or a curious footnote will depend on how quickly he adapts to Turkish football and how much of his old sharpness remains. For now, the move feels coherent: Salah has chosen a stage where he can still be the star, still compete in Europe, and still command serious respect and compensation. That is a clearer and more interesting choice than simply chasing the largest cheque available.
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