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Mo Salah will leave Liverpool at the end of the season despite his contract expiring in 2027.
Liverpool are allowing Mo Salah to leave on a free transfer because there is no market to sell the winger, it has been suggested.
The winger confirmed that he will bring the curtain down on his nine-year Anfield career at the end of the 2025-26 season. Salah is one of the Reds’ greatest players in history and is third on the club’s goalscoring charts. Since arriving from AS Roma in 2017, he has netted 255 times in 435 appearances - winning two Premier League titles, the Champions League, Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup , two Carabao Cups and the FA Cup.
Salah’s form has dipped somewhat this campaign and turning 34 in the summer and he has decided on the next chapter of his career. Many have felt an exit before his deal expired in 2027 was inevitable after an incendiary interview after Liverpool’s 3-3 draw against Leeds United in December. The Egypt international has been on the bench for a third successive game and claimed he had been ‘thrown under a bus’ and had no relationship with head coach Arne Slot.
The decision to allow Salah to effectively rip up his contract and leave for nothing was somewhat surprising. He still has a high status and has been heavily linked with a move to Saudi Arabia.
However, Christian Purslow - Liverpool’s former managing director - says that it was unlikely a club would pay a transfer fee for Salah and match his wages of £400,000 per week.
Speaking on The Football Boardroom Podcast, Purslow said: “There could be lots of explanatory reasons but the cold hard facts are Mo Salah's form has dipped dramatically. Elegant and smart and it flows from an obvious fact that after the famous blow-up, where Mo essentially dug out Arne Slot.
“That was a very significant blow-up and we said at the time, it was likely to lead to some sort of divorce. It is the kind of football equivalent of a no-fault divorce. It suits both parties. What has happened between the blow-up and now, I think we can safely conclude, that Liverpool would have been looking towards the transfer market to find a way out of a very messy situation with Mo. I suspect they found, maybe to their surprise, there wasn't a market to Mo where someone was going to buy a player with 18 months left on his contract for millions and millions of pounds.
“The cold, hard facts are a player of Mo's age whose form has dipped, question marks permanently but certainly this season meaningfully, on figures quotes north of £300,000 per week, there was not a transfer market for Mo where he would earn the same amount or more and Liverpool would be paid millions of pounds to release him.
“The two criteria here in elite football are salary and age and profile. There are a tiny number of mega-star footballers who have moved for large transfer fees in their mid-30s. Cristiano Ronaldo is one and people hoped Salah would be another Ronaldo.”
Purlslow also suggested that a move to Saudi may not be a formulation for Salah given the conflict in the Middle East with Iran and the USA.
“But there is another factor at large, it is quite clear the referred destination in the speculation was Saudi and going on about football, we can sometimes forget the world going on out there,” said Purslow.
“We are in the middle of a war and that could be a relevant factor. When you are a wealthy footballer, you can choose where you want to live and have your family live for the next two or three years.
“I suspect a move to Saudi is more complicated than it was before this year. It looks a bit more of a dangerous place. Players think hugely about their families and factors beyond the pure football. [On a separate point], it’s been obvious for some time that the era of Saudi clubs buying players over 30 for big transfer fees is behind us. They were bailing out a number of clubs in Europe, particularly in the Premier League, by doing these deals.”
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