Mohamed Salah's Next Move: What Lies Ahead After Liverpool
Mohamed Salah stands at a crossroads. Nine years, 211 goals and a legacy carved into Anfield stone are behind him. What comes next could redefine the final chapter of his career.
A World Cup gut-punch, a future wide open
On Tuesday, Salah was not the departing Liverpool legend or the most coveted free agent on the market. He was simply Egypt’s talisman, living through a World Cup heartbreak.
Two goals up against Argentina with 12 minutes to play, Egypt had one foot in a seismic win. By stoppage time, it had all collapsed. The world champions roared back, and Enzo Fernandez drove in the dagger in added time to seal a 3-2 defeat. Egypt were out. Salah’s World Cup was over in brutal fashion.
Now, so is his time at Liverpool.
The 34-year-old officially became a free agent after his contract expired at the end of last season, closing a historic spell on Merseyside in which he rose to third on the club’s all-time scoring list. The famous number 11 shirt on the right flank is empty. And the biggest name on the market is suddenly available for nothing.
Nothing in transfer fee, that is. His wages are another story.
Saudi, MLS… and the end of Europe?
Fabrizio Romano, speaking on his YouTube channel, lifted the lid on the first manoeuvres around Salah’s next move.
"He has the possibility from Saudi [Arabia] because in Saudi they always wanted Mo Salah. Already [for] two or three years, Mo Salah has been a top target," Romano explained, underlining a pursuit that has never really gone away.
Saudi interest is not a new subplot. Al-Ittihad tested Liverpool’s resolve with a staggering £150m bid on deadline day three summers ago. Liverpool said no. Now there is no club to negotiate with, just Salah and his agent, Ramy Abbas.
This time, the Saudi Pro League can dangle something even more powerful than a transfer fee: a free run at one of the game’s most marketable stars, with the kind of salary that only a handful of teams on the planet can even contemplate.
But the Middle East is not the only door ajar.
"My understanding is that also from the MLS, some calls took place to understand the situation of Mo Salah, so MLS could be a possibility as well," Romano added. Conversations have started. Clubs in the United States have asked the question.
Saudi. MLS. Two very different projects, one shared pitch: be the league that lands Mohamed Salah.
The price of greatness
Who can actually afford him? That is where the picture narrows.
At Liverpool, Salah sat at the top of the wage pyramid on around £400,000 per week. Any new deal, even on a short-term basis, would orbit that figure. Only a small group of European clubs could contemplate that level of financial commitment without distorting their structure.
Those numbers are small change for some Saudi Pro League sides, who have already rewritten the market over the past two years. For MLS, it would mean a marquee deal on the scale of the league’s biggest imports, the kind that reshapes commercial strategies and stadium attendances.
Yet this is not just about money. It rarely is with players of Salah’s competitive edge.
At 34, he remains one of the most obsessive professionals in the game, a forward who has built his career on relentless standards and a refusal to coast. Privately, he may still feel he has more to prove at the highest European level, that his legs and his numbers justify one more run at the Champions League rather than an early glide into a so-called “semi-retirement” league.
The question is whether any European giant steps forward with a package that matches his status and ambition.
Time to think
For now, there is no rush. Romano stressed that the real decision phase lies ahead: "After the World Cup there's going to be time for him and his agent Ramy Abbas to decide the future."
Egypt’s exit hands Salah something he has rarely had over the past decade: space. No club commitments. No looming qualifiers. Just time to disconnect, absorb the pain of a World Cup that slipped away in the final minutes, and weigh the offers that will land on the table.
Stay in Europe and chase one last tilt at the game’s biggest prizes? Embrace the Saudi project and its staggering financial muscle? Head to MLS and become the face of a league still growing into its global ambitions?
Each option carries a different legacy. Each would say something about what Salah values most at this stage of his career.
Back at Anfield, the adjustment has already begun. Liverpool are preparing for a season without the man who defined their right flank for nearly a decade. The sight of a new name on that number 11 shirt will confirm a reality that still feels strange.
Salah’s next step will not just shape his own twilight years. It will send a message about where the balance of power in world football really lies.
