Osimhen remains Turkey's top earner

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Victor Osimhen remains Turkey’s highest-paid footballer despite Mohamed Salah’s blockbuster move to Trabzonspor, with the Super Eagles striker’s combined earnings at Galatasaray still comfortably outstripping his Egyptian rival’s guaranteed salary, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

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Salah, who left Liverpool as a free agent at the end of the 2025/26 season, completed his move to the Black Sea club on a two-year deal running until the summer of 2028, worth a net salary of €17m per season, a figure that on its own eclipses Osimhen’s €15m net base wage at Galatasaray.

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The move makes Salah one of the biggest names ever to play in the Süper Lig and, in terms of basic wages alone, one of the highest earners in Turkish football history.

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However, Osimhen’s contract, which runs until June 2029 following his own blockbuster move to Istanbul, also carries a €1m annual loyalty bonus and a €5m image-rights payment every season, lifting his guaranteed yearly package to €21m, a full €4m clear of Salah’s fixed wage.

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Those additional clauses mean that, while Salah edges the Nigerian on basic salary, Osimhen retains the higher overall guaranteed income of the two.

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Salah’s agreement leans more heavily on commercial income than Osimhen’s. Instead of a fixed image-rights fee, the 34-year-old is set to earn twenty per cent of revenue generated from official Trabzonspor merchandise carrying his name, an unusual incentive built into the deal.

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For the Egypt captain to overtake Osimhen in overall earnings, that clause would need to generate more than €20m annually from merchandise alone, a target that would represent an extraordinary commercial feat for a club with a considerably smaller global fan base than Galatasaray, even accounting for Salah’s enormous 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.

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Trabzonspor saw off competition from fellow Turkish giants Beşiktaş to land Salah, with the Istanbul club’s positive early talks with the player’s representatives collapsing over disagreements on agent commissions and financial terms.

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Saudi Pro League side Al Ittihad were also credited with interest, having proposed around $25m per year, though no agreement was reached with the Jeddah club.

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Trabzonspor president Ertuğrul Doğan had earlier maintained that no official contract had been signed and that travel arrangements were yet to be finalised, even as transfer insiders insisted the move was entering its final stages with a medical already pencilled in, a cautious public stance not uncommon among Turkish clubs before deals are fully completed.

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Unless Salah’s arrival triggers unprecedented shirt sales and record merchandise demand, Osimhen, who continues to attract interest from Tottenham Hotspur, is expected to retain his status as Turkey’s highest-paid player overall, even with Salah now holding the higher guaranteed base salary of the two African stars.

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