Liverpool confirmed on March 24 that Mohamed Salah will leave the club at the end of the 2025-26 season, drawing to a close one of the most decorated individual careers in English football history. Salah will depart with 255 goals in 435 appearances, placing him third on Liverpool’s all-time scoring list. He helped the club win two Premier League titles, the Champions League, the FA Cup, two League Cups and the Club World Cup during his nine years at Anfield.
The announcement was framed by both parties as a mutual agreement, with Sky Sports reporting that it was very much a joint decision between Liverpool, Salah and his representatives. That framing matters, because the relationship between Salah and manager Arne Slot had been publicly fractious earlier in the season. In December, Salah said his relationship with Slot was “nonexistent” and accused the club of making him a scapegoat for their poor start to the campaign. He claimed he was “thrown under the bus” following a 3-3 draw at Leeds.
The tensions appear to have cooled since then, but the damage to Salah’s long-term future at the club was clearly done. He had signed a contract extension in April 2025, which makes the early exit all the more striking. That he chose to stay at Liverpool as a free agent in the summer of 2025, when Saudi clubs were reportedly offering enormous sums, suggested his attachment to the club ran deeper than money. The fact that it has still come to this reveals how significantly the relationship deteriorated through the opening months of the season.
As for his next destination, no announcement has been made. Saudi Arabia remains the most credible publicly established option, with Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal both linked. Salah himself admitted in May 2025 that talks with Saudi officials had been “serious” before he renewed his Liverpool deal. A return to Roma, where he spent two years before joining Liverpool, has been floated in the Italian press, though the wage gap between what Salah earns and what Roma can offer is significant.
Reports from FootballTransfers suggest Liverpool are exploring a deal that would send Salah to Al-Hilal in exchange for Brazilian striker Marcos Leonardo making the reverse journey. That kind of swap arrangement would be unusual, but so is Salah’s departure at this point in the season with a contract still technically in place.
Liverpool’s recruitment team now faces the task of replacing one of the most productive attackers English football has ever seen, without a direct like-for-like solution readily available. Sky Sports reported that the club will not be looking for a straightforward right-winger replacement, but rather a player who fits the system and complements Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike. Names including Francisco Conceicao of Juventus, Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise and Karim Adeyemi of Dortmund have been discussed in various reports.
The wages freed up by Salah’s departure and any potential transfer fees he could attract before the window opens will give Liverpool significant financial firepower. Former teammate Jamie Carragher called Salah “an automatic inclusion” in an all-time Premier League XI alongside Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo. Andy Robertson, who arrived in the same transfer window as Salah, described watching him become the best at what he does as “a joy to watch and be part of.”
The next two months, in which Salah could still contribute to Liverpool winning silverware, will serve as a farewell tour of sorts. Few departures in the Premier League era have felt quite so loaded with unresolved complexity. A player of his standing deserves a send-off that matches his legacy, and Liverpool will be hoping the remainder of this season provides exactly that.
