Mohamed Salah's Future: Saudi Arabia or Major League Soccer?
Mohamed Salah stands at a crossroads that once felt unthinkable for Liverpool supporters: a free agent, his Anfield chapter closed a year early, weighing up the final major move of a glittering career.
Egypt’s World Cup exit to Argentina has drawn a line under one story and accelerated the next. With his international duties over, the 34-year-old and his representatives have ramped up talks over where he plays next. The shortlist is now brutally clear: Saudi Pro League or Major League Soccer. Europe, for all its history and prestige, is slipping out of the frame.
Saudi pull, American promise
Saudi Arabia has been preparing for this moment for years. League officials have long identified Salah as the ideal figurehead: a global icon, a Muslim superstar, a player whose presence would instantly deepen their reach across the Arab world and beyond.
A deal in principle with the league is already understood to be in place. The framework is there, the money is there, the welcome mat has been laid out. What’s missing is the badge on his next shirt.
That choice is where the story gets interesting.
Geography is shaping Salah’s thinking as much as finance or footballing ambition. He is understood to favour clubs in the west of Saudi Arabia, close to Egypt and close to home. Cairo is never far from his mind.
Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli, both based in Jeddah, tick plenty of boxes. The city sits just a short flight from Egypt – around two hours – making family visits and quick returns far easier across a long season. For a player who has carried the hopes of a nation, that proximity matters.
Then there is Neom Sports Club, the ambitious project in Tabuk. Even closer to Egypt, it offers Salah an even more direct route back home. Neom is being built as a statement of Saudi intent across multiple spheres; adding Salah to its sporting arm would fit neatly into that vision.
Saudi Arabia can promise money, status, regional pride, and a central role in a league still aggressively on the rise. It can also offer something more personal: a sense of closeness, culturally and geographically, that no European move can match.
MLS on the table
Yet the United States refuses to fade from the conversation.
Major League Soccer has been working its way into Salah’s thoughts for some time. The league offers a different kind of appeal: lifestyle, a new market, a softer landing into the later years of his career, and the chance to join the growing list of global stars reshaping football’s footprint in North America.
Inter Miami, fronted by David Beckham, have made no secret of their admiration. They remain interested in bringing Salah to Florida, even after landing Casemiro. That signing, though, complicates the numbers and the squad balance, making a deal for Salah difficult to pull off.
So attention has drifted west, to an expansion project with a very specific connection.
San Diego FC have pushed hard and positioned themselves as serious contenders. The club is owned by Egyptian-born billionaire Sir Mohamed Mansour, a detail that has not gone unnoticed in Salah’s camp. The idea of linking up with an Egyptian owner in a burgeoning MLS market, in California of all places, carries its own weight.
The prospect of life in San Diego – the climate, the profile, the chance to be the face of a new franchise – is understood to be strong. For a player who has already conquered Europe, the challenge of helping to drive MLS’s next growth phase has its own allure.
Europe fades from view
Across the continent, clubs have tested the water. Enquiries have been made, possibilities explored. A player of Salah’s pedigree, available on a free transfer, will always prompt phone calls.
But the expectation among those close to the situation is that a European move is now highly unlikely. Not because the offers are absent, but because the equation has changed.
Salah has spent his prime years at the sharpest end of European football. Champions League nights, title races, individual awards – he has lived it all. At this stage of his career, the pull lies elsewhere: in projects that offer a different rhythm, a different kind of spotlight, and in some cases, a different kind of legacy.
Saudi Arabia and the United States offer contrasting paths, but both come with heavyweight backing and clear roles for him at the centre of their plans.
For now, there is no rush. Salah is taking his time, weighing geography against ambition, comfort against challenge, home against horizon.
One of the summer’s most high-profile free transfers is taking shape in quiet rooms and careful conversations. When the decision finally lands – Jeddah, Tabuk, California, or beyond – it will not just define the closing chapter of Mohamed Salah’s career.
It will say a great deal about where the power in the modern game truly lies.
