Trabzonspor have been shopping in a specific corner of the market this summer.
Mohamed Salah’s free transfer from Anfield was the headline, an acquisition that reshaped expectations at the Karadeniz club overnight, and they’ve kept working the same seam since.
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Experienced names, expired contracts, no fees.
Yagiz Sabuncuoglu reports they’re now very close to agreement on another one.
Fabinho has been available since the end of June, when his three-year deal at Al-Ittihad ran out and the Jeddah club decided against renewal.
Fabinho left Saudi Arabia as club captain, having won a league and King’s Cup double in 2024-25, and Al-Ittihad marked the departure publicly rather than letting it pass quietly.
The decision was strategic rather than performance-related.
It was reported that Al-Ittihad deliberately opted not to extend as part of a squad rejuvenation programme, with the terms offered dropping to around €14m per year in base salary, well below what he’d been earning on the €25m annual package that persuaded him to leave Liverpool in 2023.
He’d cost them €46m from Anfield.
The output across three seasons in Jeddah reads 111 appearances, seven goals and nine assists.
The Liverpool years are the ones that made his name.
Fabinho arrived from Monaco for €45m in July 2018 and made 219 appearances across five seasons, winning the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup.
He has said he never wanted to leave.
In his best seasons he was Liverpool’s shield, a holding midfielder who could break up play and then pick the pass out, and his 2021-22 campaign brought five goals from 29 league appearances.
He turns 33 in October and his career totals sit at 413 league appearances with 37 goals across Brazil, France, England and Saudi Arabia, plus 104 continental appearances.
Al-Ittihad had also been experimenting with him as a centre-back late in his spell, using him alongside Danilo Pereira in a Dubai training camp, which broadens what a signing club would be getting.
Nothing has been signed.
Sabuncuoglu’s wording is that the two sides are close, not that it’s done.
🚨 Trabzonspor, Fabinho ile anlaşmaya çok yakın! pic.twitter.com/NEv1BZArOv
— Yağız Sabuncuoğlu (@yagosabuncuoglu) August 22, 2026