Salah and Núñez Reunite at Trabzonspor: A Shift in the Pay Scale

Darwin Núñez is heading back into Mohamed Salah’s orbit. Just not in the way many imagined.

The Uruguayan striker, now on the books at Al-Hilal, is set to join Trabzonspor on loan for next season, according to Saudi outlet Al-Yaum, citing Turkish newspaper Sözcü. It would reunite him with Salah after their three-year spell together at Liverpool between 2022 and 2025.

This time, though, the hierarchy is flipped. On the pitch, Salah remains the superstar. On the wage slip, Núñez comes out on top.

Al-Hilal have agreed to send Núñez to the Turkish club on a one-season deal while allowing him to keep the full salary he earns in Saudi Arabia: a hefty 22 million euros. That figure outstrips Salah’s current Trabzonspor pay packet by a clear margin. The Egyptian is on 17 million euros.

The numbers behind the move are striking. Trabzonspor will only shoulder 8 million euros of Núñez’s salary. Al-Hilal will cover the remaining 14 million, effectively paying the majority of the bill just to move on a player who never truly settled.

Their eagerness to offload him tells its own story. Núñez struggled to convince in the first half of last season, then disappeared from Al-Hilal’s domestic squad list entirely in the second. For a marquee signing, it was a sharp and very public fall down the pecking order.

Trabzonspor, meanwhile, are building something bold. They have already pulled off one of the headline deals of the summer by landing Salah on a two-year contract, ending his nine-year stay at Liverpool that began in 2017 and delivered a second Premier League title in the club’s history. Across that era, Salah was Liverpool’s defining figure, the man who dragged them back to the summit after a five-year wait for the league crown.

Now he walks into a new dressing room in Turkey, and Núñez is expected to follow him through the door. The dynamic will be fascinating. At Liverpool, Salah was the unquestioned main man and Núñez the high-energy, sometimes erratic forward still trying to find his place in the system. In Trabzon, the Egyptian’s aura remains, but the wage structure says something different about how the modern market values goals, age and potential.

For Trabzonspor, it is a calculated gamble with the upside of a Champions League-level forward line at a fraction of the true cost. For Al-Hilal, it is a costly admission that their big attacking bet has not paid off as planned.

For Salah and Núñez, it is a reunion in a very different landscape. The last time they chased trophies together, it was under the Anfield lights. Now the stage is Turkey, the colours are different, and the stakes are personal as much as they are sporting.