Salah and a raft of stars test Turkish Super Lig’s transfer model
As of 19 August 2026 Mohamed Salah is playing in the Turkish Super Lig, joining a wave of high-profile arrivals including Romelu Lukaku, Leandro Trossard, Leroy Sané and Nathan Aké and prompting debate over whether the league is assembling shrewd signings or becoming a retirement destination.
The move that most captured attention was Salah’s transfer to Trabzonspor, with reports saying he will earn about as much there as he did with Liverpool last season under Turkey’s net salary arrangements. Victor Osimhen is already at Galatasaray, where he has scored 43 league goals in two seasons, plus this campaign’s opener. With the Saudi Pro League scaling back its earlier spending after luring Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar in 2023, the Super Lig has become a prominent alternative for established names.
The switch in Turkey’s buying power is linked in part to the collapse of the lira against the euro: the currency traded at about €0.10 half a decade ago and is now roughly €0.018. Turkish clubs pay wages in lira while income from European competitions and foreign broadcasters arrives in euros, a mix that the country’s four biggest clubs — Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Trabzonspor — are exploiting to afford players previously out of reach.
The article places the Super Lig alongside several earlier examples of leagues that spent heavily to attract star players. It quotes President Xi Jinping and his government saying the push for China was “a must to build China into a sports powerhouse as part of the Chinese dream”; it recalls Suleyman Kerimov’s purchase of Anzhi Makhachkala and the subsequent arms race with Zenit St Petersburg, Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Moscow. It notes Flamengo’s January acquisition of Lucas Paquetá from West Ham for $50m and that Cruzeiro paid Zenit $32m for Gerson 20 days earlier, and it references Major League Soccer’s Beckham era signings such as Thierry Henry and Robbie Keane and the Qatar Stars League recruiting names including Gabriel Batistuta, Pep Guardiola, Frank de Boer and Marcel Desailly.
Turkey’s established fan base and long footballing culture are highlighted as features that set this episode apart from some past spending sprees, with the claim that Turkish clubs have begun to earn credibility as homes for star players even as those players remain able to appear in European competitions. The article raises the point that the Super Lig’s recent activity could serve multiple purposes for clubs and players given that context.
The piece also frames the Super Lig’s recruitment as functioning, in effect, as a source of cash for Europe’s traditional leagues: "At a minimum, these nouveaux riche leagues provide a hefty cash injection to the old-money center of the European game," the article says. It records the pattern seen before in other markets, where heavy spending eventually ebbed and the leagues involved shifted strategy.
Galatasaray have qualified automatically for the Champions League, Fenerbahce are in the Champions League qualifiers, and Trabzonspor and Besiktas are both in the qualifying rounds of European competition, placing Turkey’s biggest clubs on the continent’s calendar as their transfer experiment plays out.
