Saudi Pro League, the US or Europe – what are Salah's options?

Mohamed Salah’s nine-year Liverpool odyssey will reach its final whistle this summer, and the question consuming the sport is not simply where the 33-year-old will play next, but which continent can offer the blend of finance, profile and competition that befits the most celebrated Arab footballer on the planet.

Saudi Arabia immediately vaults to the head of the queue. The kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) controls the Pro League’s “big four” – Al-Ahli, Al-Hilal, Al-Ittihad and Al-Nassr – and views Salah as the one signature capable of rivalling the commercial magnetism of Cristiano Ronaldo. In 2023 Al-Ittihad tabled a £150 million bid that Liverpool rejected; with Salah now available on a free, that door is wide open. Beyond the traditional powers, Al-Qadsiah – managed by former Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers and bankrolled by oil giant Aramco – are known admirers. Football finance analyst Kieran Maguire is unequivocal on affordability: “They’re paying Cristiano Ronaldo £170 million a year. Salah’s currently on £20 million a year so finances won’t be the issue.” The only caveat, Maguire adds, is the region’s geopolitical climate, though by summer the current Middle-Eastern tensions could have eased.

Major League Soccer offers a different currency: lifestyle, brand expansion and a stage set to grow louder in 2026 when the World Cup lands on North American soil. League commissioner Don Garber has already issued a public invitation, urging Salah to consult Messi and Thomas Müller on the virtues of life in the States. Inter Miami, whose wage bill tops MLS at $48.98 million, would be the natural front-runners; Messi’s package, valued at $70-80 million annually once Adidas and Apple partnerships are layered in, shows the creative structures available. “Everything is negotiable,” Maguire notes, pointing to the Beckham-rule mechanism that allowed Beckham, Messi and Luis Suárez to bypass the salary cap.

Europe remains the path of competitive purity. Despite a “below-par” campaign by his own standards, Salah still carries 10 goals and nine assists into the season’s final weeks and, crucially, believes he can illuminate a Champions League knockout tie. Harry Kane, a year younger, continues to thrive in the Bundesliga, offering Salah a persuasive precedent. Yet the list of clubs able to meet his wage demands is vanishingly short. Newcastle’s Saudi ownership is offset by Premier League profit-and-sustainability shackles. Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Barcelona possess the financial muscle, but each carries positional or strategic caveats: PSG have pivoted away from galáctico spending, Barcelona boast teenage prodigy Lamine Yamal on the right flank, and Madrid’s wide positions are already stocked.

The arithmetic, therefore, narrows to a two-horse race: Saudi Arabia’s limitless petro-dollars against MLS’s lifestyle-and-brand pitch. Wherever the plane touches down, the sight of Mohamed Salah in anything but Liverpool red will be one of the defining images of the 2025 summer window.