Mohamed Salah Joins Trabzonspor as Liverpool Era Ends

Mohamed Salah’s Liverpool story is over. The next one starts on the Black Sea.

The 34-year-old forward has joined Turkish Super Lig side Trabzonspor on a free transfer, signing a two-year deal after agreeing to terminate his Liverpool contract 12 months early at the end of last season. A nine-year spell at Anfield, one of the most decorated and devastating in the club’s modern history, ends not with a Saudi payday or a final tilt in Serie A, but in a fiercely partisan corner of Turkey.

It is a striking choice for a player of his stature. One of Liverpool’s greatest, Salah leaves Merseyside with seven major trophies and 257 goals in 442 appearances, the third-highest scorer the club has ever had. He rewrote records, terrorised defences, and turned big European nights into a personal stage. Yet his final months were anything but a lap of honour.

A difficult season under Arne Slot saw Salah dropped and involved in a public fallout with the then-Liverpool head coach. The relationship broke down in full view, the aura of untouchability around Liverpool’s talisman beginning to fray. By the time club and player agreed to part ways a year before his deal was due to end in April 2025, the separation felt inevitable, even if the destination did not.

Only three years ago, Liverpool had turned down a £150m offer from Al Ittihad, betting that Salah’s prime still belonged in the Premier League and the Champions League. Since then, Saudi Arabia’s interest has not gone away. The 34-year-old has been a long-standing target for clubs in the Pro League, and when he delivered a bombshell interview after being dropped at Leeds last season, the smart money pointed firmly towards the Gulf.

Instead, he has gone north-east.

Why Trabzonspor?

The move, as Sky Sports News’ Kaveh Solhekol outlined, adds up in cold financial terms. Reports in Turkey suggest Salah will earn around £15m a year, in a tax environment that heavily favours professional footballers. For a player in the later years of his career, those numbers matter.

So does the stage. Trabzonspor bring noise, colour and pressure. The club sits outside the Istanbul axis but lives off a powerful sense of identity, backed by a fanbase that treats football as a way of life rather than a weekend diversion. Salah will not be drifting into semi-retirement; he will be walking into a cauldron.

There is also Europe. Trabzonspor have a strong chance of playing in the Europa League next season, a platform that still carries weight for a player whose career has been defined by midweek floodlights and knockout jeopardy. It is not the Champions League, but it is not exile either.

“It ticks a lot of boxes for him,” Solhekol said. “He had lots of other options as well.” That line matters. This is not a case of a great player left with nowhere else to go. It is a deliberate turn towards a different kind of challenge.

Carragher’s doubt

Not everyone is convinced.

Jamie Carragher, speaking on Sky Sports, did not hide his surprise. “I never believed he was going to go to Saudi, because number one, he’s too good for that,” he said. For Carragher, the natural next step lay in Italy, not Turkey.

“I think he can be playing in Serie A. Turkey for me feels a level too low,” he argued, name-checking AC Milan and Juventus as the sort of clubs that seemed a more fitting home for a player of Salah’s profile and drive. In Carragher’s eyes, this is a forward cut from the same relentless cloth as Cristiano Ronaldo, a man whose numbers and legacy fuel every decision.

“I thought he’d want to play at a real prestigious club,” Carragher continued. He floated the idea that wage demands may have cooled interest from Europe’s elite, and that Salah might have been better served by trimming those expectations to secure a move to a San Siro giant, to “still play in big games, still playing in Europe.”

Then came the blunt verdict: “Turkey just feels like... I just think he’s better than that.”

Legacy and risk

Strip away the emotion and the numbers remain extraordinary. Seven major trophies. 257 goals. Nine years of carrying Liverpool’s attack, often on his own shoulders. Salah leaves Anfield as a legend, his place in the club’s history already chiselled into the walls.

Yet the route he has chosen now will shape how the final chapters of his career are read.

If he lights up Trabzonspor, drags them deep into Europe, and turns the Super Lig into his personal playground, the move will look like a calculated decision: money, adulation, and meaningful football in a league that lives on intensity. If the level drops, if the goals slow and the spotlight dims, questions like Carragher’s will only grow louder.

For now, the facts are simple. Mohamed Salah has walked away from Liverpool, from the Premier League and from the gravitational pull of Saudi Arabia, and planted his flag in Trabzon. The Black Sea city has its new superstar.

What he does with these next two years will decide whether this becomes a curious epilogue or a defiant final act.