Mohamed Salah Joins Trabzonspor as Liverpool Career Ends

Mohamed Salah has drawn a bold line under one of the great modern Premier League careers, swapping Anfield for Trabzonspor on a free transfer and signing a two-year deal with the Turkish club.

The move ends a glittering nine-year spell at Liverpool, curtailed 12 months early after player and club agreed to terminate a contract that was due to run until April 2025. It is a separation shaped as much by a difficult final season as by the weight of what came before it.

A brutal final act at Anfield

For years, Salah felt untouchable on Merseyside. Seven major trophies, 257 goals in 442 games, and a place on the podium of Liverpool’s all-time scorers. Only two players in the club’s history have found the net more often. That is the scale of the legacy he leaves behind.

Yet the closing stretch was far from a lap of honour. The 34-year-old endured a fraught final campaign, dropped from the starting XI and involved in a public fallout with then-head coach Arne Slot. The image of Liverpool’s talisman arguing on the touchline cut sharply against the myth of the relentless, smiling goalscorer who seemed to thrive on every stage.

When the dust settled, both sides chose a clean break rather than a slow fade.

Saudi millions turned down, Turkish project embraced

For a long time, the script seemed written. Saudi Arabia wanted Salah. Badly. Less than three years ago, Liverpool rejected a £150m bid from Al Ittihad, a number that underlined how highly the forward was valued both as a footballer and as a global icon.

Even last season, after that bombshell interview following his omission at Leeds, the expectation was clear: if he left Liverpool, the Saudi Pro League would be waiting with another vast offer. It felt like the obvious next step in a career already stacked with European honours and personal records.

Instead, he has chosen Trabzon.

Why Trabzonspor works for Salah

On paper, the choice looks calculated rather than romantic. As Sky Sports News’ Kaveh Solhekol outlined, the financial package is strong. Reports in Turkey suggest Salah will earn around £15m a year, helped by a tax system that favours professional footballers. For a free agent in the final prime years of his career, that matters.

So does the stage. The Turkish Super Lig offers big, volatile games and fanbases that live every minute as if it were a cup final. Trabzonspor, with their own fiercely loyal support, can offer him a central role and the status he craves.

European football is another key lure. There is a strong chance Trabzonspor will feature in the Europa League next season, a platform that keeps Salah in continental competition and in the wider European conversation. It is not the Champions League, but it is not exile either.

For Salah, it ticks enough boxes: money, minutes, meaning.

Carragher: “Turkey feels a level too low”

Not everyone is convinced this is the right stage for a player of his stature. Jamie Carragher, speaking on Sky Sports, did not hide his surprise.

He never believed Salah would go to Saudi Arabia, not because of the finances, but because he feels “he’s too good for that”. In Carragher’s eyes, the Egyptian still belongs at the heart of one of Europe’s traditional powers.

Serie A seemed the natural fit to him. AC Milan, Juventus – names that echo with history, stadiums like San Siro that still draw the world’s gaze. Carragher admitted he expected Salah to walk out in those colours, not in the claret and blue of Trabzonspor.

The stumbling block, he suggested, may have been wages. A player of Salah’s profile commands huge money, and Carragher suspects those demands scared off some of the elite clubs who might otherwise have made their move.

What jarred most for him was the sense that Salah, a player he likened in mentality to Cristiano Ronaldo – obsessed with numbers, driven by records – would surely want to squeeze every last drop out of the very top level. To do that, Carragher argued, he might have needed to compromise on salary to land at one of those “prestigious clubs”.

Instead, the forward has chosen a different route. “Turkey just feels like… I just think he’s better than that,” Carragher said, summing up his unease.

A new kind of challenge

Strip away the emotion and the picture is stark. Salah leaves Liverpool as one of the greatest players in the club’s history, with a medal collection and a goal tally that will stand comparison with almost anyone of his generation.

He now walks into a league where he will be the headline act from the moment he lands. The pressure will be different, but it will not be absent. Turkish football does not do quiet nights, and neither does Mohamed Salah.

The Premier League has seen the last of him. Europe has not.