Merely eight months ago, Mohamed Salah was benched for three consecutive matches by struggling Liverpool manager Arne Slot.
The response from the Egyptian was vicious: a scathing assessment of Slot's management, and veiled accusations towards the Reds' hierarchy, claiming the prerogative was to see him escorted for financial gain out of the back door.
Salah believed then, and later backed it up, that he had far more left to give to the game. With his move to Trabzonspor confirmed, those media antics should be called out exactly as they now appear – farcical, disappointing, and an insult to his most ardent fans.
Mohamed Salah has betrayed himself and his supporters with this decision, but the Egyptian can still achieve redemption
The truth is, Salah was right. Being benched was a statement, and the Liverpool hierarchy were almost certainly devising ways to send him packing, and free up their wage bill from his astronomical salary.
But his choice to move to the Super Lig, a competition that would do well to make it into the world's top ten highest-quality leagues, is no less than a stab in the back to those long-time supporters that adamantly defended him in light of that unfair treatment.
Salah ended the 2025/26 season with 29 goal contributions across the Premier League, Champions League, Africa Cup of Nations, and the World Cup.
He appeared in just 41 games for Liverpool, reaching 22 involvements in at least ten less matches played than any season barring 2023/24, another injury-ridden campaign for Salah, since the turn of the decade.
He enjoyed his most prolific Africa Cup of Nations campaign with Egypt, and spearheaded his nation to their first-ever World Cup win, and a victory in the knock-outs vs Australia, with seven contributions across both major tournaments.
But even his most optimistic supporters would surely concede that the decision to move to Turkey reeks of a man who has seemingly given up.
In a summer when similarly aged departing Premier League legends have opted to lower their salary demands to remain at the top level, including free agents Bernardo Silva and John Stones, both leaving the team that Salah rivalled for nearly a decade, this decision should disappoint followers of his extraordinary career deeply.
FourFourTwo understands that the Egyptian, now the highest paid player in Europe after tax, turned down lower salary offers from multiple clubs in the Serie A. Even Salah's most vocal critic, Jamie Carragher, acknowledged that Turkey is ‘a level too low' for the Liverpool icon, and confessed that he expected to see him back in Italy.
FourFourTwo also understands that two factors were particularly vital in Salah's decision: his wife, Magi, was enticed by Turkey as a location for their family to live in, and, naturally, the size of his enormous pay packet played a significant role, which links back to his financially strained upbringing in Nagrig.
The Salah family purchased a sea-view villa for $10 million in Bodrum, Turkey, over a year ago, which initially signalled that they believed the country was as an attractive place to reside.
The Egyptian escaped impoverished, isolated conditions from his rural farming village roots to become one of the greatest players in history, and, as a result, Salah views salary as a crucial measurement of his worth and success.
Despite these motivations, the collective disapproval of this decision globally is entirely rightful, and becomes far more intense when narrowed down solely to Egyptian supporters.
In that corner of the world, the response is fuelled by love – Salah is the greatest African footballer in history, and he, virtually single-handedly, put their nation on the sporting map.
But to see the Liverpool icon choose money over glory feels like both the disappointing conclusion to an era they hoped would never end, and a deep betrayal, because he appears to have pulled the plug prematurely.
For those fans, the ones who believed Salah's words when he told the press last December that he is still one of the finest players in the world, and watched him excel for the Egyptian national team throughout 2026, it is as sad as it is rage-inducing.
Luckily for the 34-year-old, he can indeed redeem himself. But he has placed a ludicrous burden on his shoulders, perhaps the most ever in his career, to pull off a feat he has been unable to get over the line since his debut.
That is to win the Africa Cup of Nations for Egypt, the most successful footballing nation in the competition's history, who have never won the tournament since Salah made his international debut.
Of course, Salah is far from responsible for that. In fact, the 34-year-old is the primary reason that Egypt did not fade into obscurity after the Port Said disaster stalled footballing development in the country, back in 2012.
The riot tragically caused the deaths of 74 people, and injuries to over 500 others, and shut down domestic football in Egypt for two years.
As a result, the national team was greatly affected, and Salah's talent was integral in them still making it to two AFCON finals in 2017 and 2021, and the third and fourth World Cups in Egypt's history.
To redeem himself in the eyes of those who rightfully feel that Salah has abandoned his competitive edge at an age far too early (the Egyptian, one of football's fittest athletes, confessed to Gary Neville in 2025 that he will still be playing at 40), winning Africa's greatest international prize is a must.
During his Premier League playing days, it became truth among fans that the tournament, if held mid-season, would inevitably lead Salah to suffer an underwhelming end to the campaign, due to the overwhelming demands of Africa Cup of Nations football.
This was clearly evident in 2021/22, when the now 34-year-old was, by a considerable stretch, the best player in the world from August to December, contributing to 21 goals in 15 straight Premier League games.
During the January tournament, he registered involvements in 75% of Egypt's goals en-route to the final vs Senegal, which Salah's side lost, and played four consecutive matches that went to 120 minutes.
Upon his return to Liverpool, Salah's output dropped, as the mental and physical load of carrying his domestic and international sides finally took its toll.
In Turkey? That problem no longer exists, not even at 34, with Salah being able to enjoy the lessened physical impacts of a far, far less competitive league than the English top-flight.
And with Egypt almost prevailing against eventual finalists Argentina at the 2026 World Cup, in which Salah delivered a stunning assist for his country's second of the game, which was controversially disallowed, expectations were already high ahead of the 2027 tournament.
The Liverpool legend will have two chances back-to-back, first in 2027, during the summer tournament hosted by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, then again in 2028.
After that, the Africa Cup of Nations will be held every four years, meaning Salah's next opportunity would be in 2032. That is, for obvious reasons, entirely unfeasible.
In the Super Lig, Salah's clearest shot at Turkish football immortality is taking Trabzonspor to Europa League glory, if the team even makes it beyond the qualifying phases.
However, long-time fans of the Egyptian will likely not care even if he breaks Messi's 91-goal calendar year haul in Turkey. A better ending to his career could have came still on Merseyside, continuing to break Premier League records as a rotational player.
Perhaps most sickeningly of all for those supporters, this choice has effectively vindicated the most dishonest of narratives surrounding Salah, even emanating from within the Liverpool fanbase, that rushed to proclaim him as 'finished' after one sub-par season.
Salah still has plenty left in the tank, even if his transfer priorities appear to disagree with his, often warranted, arrogant antics.
He can cement his legacy in finely carved stone with the Africa Cup of Nations victory which has eluded him for his entire career, but Egyptians will no longer accept excuses if he doesn't find the means to prevail.
For a player who impossibly escaped the most arduous of childhood circumstances and became arguably the greatest player in Premier League history, it feels bizarrely apt that he'd place such extraordinary pressure on himself to deliver at the tail end of his journey.
And somehow, because it's always somehow with Mohamed Salah, isn't it obvious he will do it?
