Mohamed Salah MLS Interest Grows as Liverpool Exit Nears

Mohamed Salah is drawing serious interest from multiple Major League Soccer clubs ahead of his expected free departure from Liverpool at the end of the 2025-26 season, with Saudi Pro League outfits also in the hunt for the Egyptian forward’s signature. The 32-year-old winger — one of the most decorated players in Premier League history — appears set to leave Anfield without a transfer fee, forcing clubs across two continents to position themselves for what amounts to one of the summer’s most consequential free-agent pursuits.

The competition for Salah’s services reflects both his enduring commercial appeal and his sustained on-pitch output. Breaking down the advanced metrics over his Liverpool tenure, the numbers reveal a pattern of elite goal contribution rates that few wide forwards in world football have matched across a nine-year stretch at a single club. Whether MLS or the Saudi Pro League ultimately wins the race, the business case for either destination is straightforward: Salah moves the needle commercially and still delivers in the final third.

Why Mohamed Salah Is Leaving Liverpool This Summer

Mohamed Salah is departing Liverpool because his contract expires at the close of the current campaign, and no extension has been announced. The Egyptian’s deal runs out in the summer of 2026, making him a free agent and allowing any club to negotiate directly with him from January onward under FIFA’s standard transfer regulations.

Liverpool’s front office has navigated this situation carefully. Arne Slot’s squad remains in Premier League title contention, and club leadership has apparently chosen not to disrupt the dressing room dynamic with a protracted public negotiation. From a pure squad-building standpoint, that restraint carries risk — losing a player of Salah’s caliber on a free transfer without securing a successor represents a significant structural gap, particularly given his role in Liverpool’s pressing triggers and wide-channel overloads on the right flank.

Salah has scored and assisted at a rate that most Premier League attackers would envy even in their prime years. His ability to function both as an inside forward cutting onto his left foot and as a deeper creative outlet has made him near-impossible to replace on a like-for-like basis. Liverpool’s recruitment team will face intense scrutiny over how they handle the transition.

MLS vs. Saudi Pro League: Who Wins the Mohamed Salah Sweepstakes?

Several MLS clubs are actively competing with Saudi Pro League sides for Mohamed Salah’s signature this summer, according to Football Insider. The dual interest reflects a broader shift in global football’s transfer economics, where American soccer’s growing commercial infrastructure now rivals the Gulf’s financial firepower for marquee free agents.

MLS has spent the past three seasons aggressively upgrading its talent pool. Lionel Messi’s arrival at Inter Miami in 2023 reshaped the league’s global profile, and club operators have since leaned into that momentum. Salah would represent the next logical step in that trajectory — a player still operating at a high competitive level, rather than a retirement showcase signing. The league’s designated player rules allow clubs to pay well above the salary cap threshold, removing the financial ceiling that once made MLS a non-starter for elite European talent in their early thirties.

Saudi clubs, meanwhile, have already signed Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Karim Benzema, and a raft of Premier League names. The infrastructure for high-profile arrivals is established. Based on available data, the Saudi Pro League’s ability to offer tax-free wages that dwarf European equivalents remains its primary competitive advantage, though the league’s lower competitive intensity has deterred some players who still want meaningful football.

Key Developments in the Salah Transfer Situation

• Multiple MLS clubs are competing against each other — not just against Saudi sides — for Salah‘s signature, suggesting American interest is broad rather than limited to one or two franchises.
• Football Insider, the outlet reporting the MLS interest, is the same source that accurately reported Andy Robertson’s impending Liverpool departure, lending additional credibility to the Salah story.
• Robertson is also set to leave Liverpool this summer as a free agent, with AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, Atletico Madrid, and Celtic all monitoring his availability — meaning Liverpool face a dual exit on the left and right flanks simultaneously.
• Salah’s situation differs from Robert Lewandowski’s at Barcelona, where the Spanish club is willing to offer a one-year contract extension to retain the Polish striker; Liverpool have not publicly tabled a comparable offer to Salah.
• Any Saudi move for Salah would likely require a clean transfer fee rather than a loan arrangement, a structure described as “complicated” in similar cases involving players returning from the Gulf on short-term deals.

What Mohamed Salah’s Departure Means for Liverpool’s Title Push and Beyond

Liverpool’s immediate priority is securing the Premier League title before addressing the summer rebuild. Salah’s form through the 2025-26 campaign has been central to that challenge, and Arne Slot will be acutely aware that managing any distraction around the Egyptian’s future could affect the club’s final-stretch results.

Liverpool Football Club enter the final weeks of the season with Salah still fully committed on the pitch. That professionalism has defined his Anfield career — nine seasons without a public falling-out, a contract dispute that never spilled into the press in a damaging way, and a consistent return of goals and assists that kept him in the Premier League’s elite conversation year after year. Whatever destination he chooses, his departure will close one of the most productive individual chapters in Liverpool’s post-2000 history.

The transfer strategy implications for Anfield are substantial. Liverpool’s recruitment analysts will need to identify a wide forward capable of replicating Salah’s goal contribution numbers — historically around 20-plus goals per season in his peak years — while also fitting Slot’s positional structure. That search will run parallel to replacing Robertson on the opposite flank, making the 2026 summer window one of the most consequential rebuilding exercises the club has faced since Jurgen Klopp’s initial squad overhaul in 2016. The numbers suggest no direct replacement exists in the current market at comparable cost.