PHOTO CREDIT: PunchNG / Galatasaray & Trabzonspor
Osimhen Remains Turkey’s Top Earner Despite Salah’s Arrival
Victor Osimhen is still the highest-paid player in Turkish football, even after Mohamed Salah’s sensational move to Trabzonspor.
The Egyptian forward joined the Black Sea club as a free agent after leaving Liverpool at the end of the 2025/26 season. He signed a two-year contract until the summer of 2028 worth €17 million net per season in basic salary – a figure that alone surpasses Osimhen’s €15 million net base wage at Galatasaray.
The deal makes Salah one of the biggest names to ever feature in the Süper Lig and one of the highest earners in the league’s history on basic wages alone.
However, Osimhen’s overall package keeps him on top. The Super Eagles striker, whose Galatasaray contract runs until June 2029, earns an additional €1 million annual loyalty bonus plus €5 million in image-rights payments every season. That lifts his total guaranteed yearly earnings to €21 million – €4 million more than Salah’s fixed salary.
Salah’s contract is structured differently, leaning more on commercial incentives. Rather than a fixed image-rights fee, the 34-year-old will receive 20 percent of revenue from official Trabzonspor merchandise bearing his name.
For Salah to overtake Osimhen in total earnings, that clause would have to generate over €20 million annually from merchandise sales alone – an extraordinary target for a club with a smaller global fanbase than Galatasaray, despite Salah’s huge popularity built over nine years at Liverpool, where he scored 255 goals in 435 appearances and won two Premier League titles and the 2019 Champions League.
Trabzonspor beat fellow giants Beşiktaş to secure Salah’s signature after talks with the Istanbul club collapsed over agent commissions. Saudi side Al Ittihad had also offered around $25m per year but failed to reach an agreement.
Unless Salah sparks unprecedented shirt sales in Trabzon, Osimhen – who continues to attract interest from Tottenham Hotspur – will remain Turkey’s overall highest-paid player, even though Salah now holds the higher base salary between the two African stars.
SOURCE: Punch Newspapers –