Mohamed Salah reshapes business empire before Trabzonspor move

Mohamed Salah stepped down as a director of all four of his British companies three days before Trabzonspor announced his signing, with his wife Magi Sadeq appointed to each board on the same day.

On 3 August 2026, Sadeq replaced Salah as a registered director across the four businesses. In three of the companies, she was joined by chartered accountant and tax adviser Frederick William Huxtable, who had already been a director of Salah’s principal commercial company since May 2024.

Three days later, on 6 August, Trabzonspor confirmed a two-year contract for the Egypt forward.

The sequence of events points to a significant reorganisation of Salah’s business and asset structure. The timing alone does not establish why the changes were made, but possible tax considerations coincide with developments in both the United Kingdom and Abu Dhabi.

Sadeq takes a formal role in the family businesses

Sadeq has generally stayed away from the spotlight during her husband’s career in Europe, but company records show that she did not first become involved in the family’s business structure in August 2026.

Before Salah moved to Turkey, she already owned or co-owned two of the family’s companies, while their daughter Makka shared ownership of a third property business. The exact ownership arrangements are set out in the companies’ structure.

What changed on 3 August was her move into the registered director’s position at all four companies, at the same time as Salah left their boards.

The latest accounts for the four British companies show combined accounting assets of more than £54m. Their combined net position is close to £34.8m, although the accounts have different year-end dates and do not present their figures in identical ways.

Those figures are not market valuations of the companies and do not represent an estimate of Salah’s personal wealth.

Salah owns all the shares in his main commercial business, SALAH UK COMMERCIAL. He and Sadeq each own 50% of MOS REAL ESTATE. Salah also owns half of TRINITY KENSINGTON alongside Makka, while retaining the right to appoint or remove its directors. Sadeq owns all of MOS INVESTORS and is recorded as the person with control of that company.

Following the changes, Salah is working in Turkey without remaining a registered director of any of his four British companies. Sadeq and Huxtable are now the only registered directors.

Huxtable is a former partner at the international accounting and tax advisory network RSM. He has previously written about the tax treatment of image rights.

The arrangement could separate Salah’s new working life in Turkey from the administration of his British assets, but it does not automatically remove him from UK tax obligations. His tax residence depends on several other factors, including the number of days he spends in Britain, where he works and lives, and his family connections.

British image-rights company has built up £35.5m in net assets

Salah established SALAH UK COMMERCIAL LIMITED around the time he moved to Chelsea, and the company remains active.

Its role was highlighted in a judgment from the Amsterdam court relating to a dispute with Adidas. The ruling said Salah’s rights in the United Kingdom were owned and managed by SALAH UK COMMERCIAL, while IMAGECORP HOLDINGS LIMITED owned and managed his rights in the rest of the world.

The two companies had separate sponsorship agreements with Adidas, both of which ended on 31 July 2026. SALAH UK COMMERCIAL therefore provides a vehicle for licensing the use of Salah’s name and image in the UK in return for payments made to the company.

The latest available accounts, filed in February 2026 for the year ending in June 2025, show total assets of about £46m and liabilities of roughly £10.5m. Net assets reached £35.5m, up from about £29.3m a year earlier, an increase of approximately £6.2m.

Net assets are not Salah’s annual income or cash received by him during that year. They represent the accumulated value held by the company after its liabilities have been deducted. The published accounts do not separately identify annual sales or show how much came from Liverpool compared with sponsorship agreements.

HM Revenue and Customs says company profits are subject to corporation tax. Money received by a shareholder is then governed by separate rules depending on whether it is taken as salary, dividends or another form of payment.

The accounts show that the company accumulated net assets worth tens of millions of pounds during Salah’s time in the Premier League.

UK image-rights tax rules are due to change

The UK government announced in November 2025 that it intended to introduce a tax change from 6 April 2027 affecting image-rights payments linked to a player’s contract with his club.

Under the current system, a player’s company can receive payments from his club for the commercial use of his image without those payments automatically being treated as salary. The rights must have genuine commercial value and the club must have a real plan to exploit them.

A case involving Hull City established an important dividing line. Payments equivalent to about 25% of one player’s income were treated as wages after authorities concluded that the club had no genuine commercial plan to exploit his image rights.

Under the new rules, any image-rights payment connected to a player’s employment would be treated as part of his earnings, even when paid to his company. It would therefore be subject to income tax and National Insurance contributions.

The change does not automatically cover independent sponsorship agreements such as those with Adidas or Pepsi.

Salah’s Liverpool contract was due to run until 2027 before the two parties agreed to end it early. Had it continued, the new rules would have taken effect during the final weeks of his time at the club. Any image-rights payments linked to that contract would then have been treated as employment income, even if they were paid to his British company.

About four months after the government announced the planned tax change, Salah confirmed on 24 March 2026 that he would leave Liverpool at the end of the season. The timing makes the reform a potentially relevant factor, but it does not prove that it influenced the decision. No document links the two events.

ImageCorp leaves Abu Dhabi without disclosing its new jurisdiction

IMAGECORP HOLDINGS LIMITED is described in the Dutch judgment as the company that owns and manages Salah’s rights outside the UK.

According to the public register of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, it was incorporated in the Cayman Islands on 24 January 2014 under the number GC-284598. In January 2021, it was legally transferred to the Abu Dhabi Global Market, where it was recorded under entity number 000005015. Salah’s lawyer and adviser, Ramy Abbas Issa, appeared as a director.

On 4 April 2025, Salah stopped appearing as a direct shareholder. JUPITER INVESTMENTS LIMITED subsequently appeared as the direct shareholder instead.

A change in the name of the direct shareholder does not reveal the ultimate beneficial owner. The public register does not identify who benefits from Jupiter, so it is not possible to establish whether it is a holding company within a structure used by Salah or an independent entity.

On 29 April 2026, about five weeks after Salah announced his departure from Liverpool, ImageCorp applied to move from the Abu Dhabi Global Market to another jurisdiction. The market’s authorities approved the process on 17 June, and the transfer was completed on 22 June.

The description “continued outside the Abu Dhabi Global Market” means ImageCorp was not dissolved. It moved its legal domicile elsewhere while retaining its legal identity.

On the same day, Abbas ceased to be listed as a director. He had appeared in Salah’s international image-rights structures since 2018. Jupiter also stopped appearing as ImageCorp’s direct shareholder.

The publicly available record ends at that point. It does not disclose the new jurisdiction or identify the company’s directors and shareholders after the transfer.

Tax may be one explanation, but not the only one

When ImageCorp moved to Abu Dhabi in 2021, the United Arab Emirates did not yet operate a general federal corporation tax system in its current form. Corporation tax began applying to financial years starting on or after 1 June 2023, requiring companies to register, file returns and pay any tax due.

Being based in a free zone does not guarantee a zero tax rate. That treatment is limited to “qualifying income”, while non-qualifying income is subject to a 9% rate. The UAE Federal Tax Authority’s guidance says brands and other marketing-related intellectual property do not fall within the category of intellectual property eligible for the zero rate.

Tax is therefore a possible explanation for ImageCorp’s departure. The company applied to leave in April 2026, after the new system had come into effect. However, the timing also coincided with other commercial and sporting changes in Salah’s career.

The two Adidas agreements referred to in the Amsterdam judgment ended on 31 July 2026. Three days later, Salah left the boards of his four British companies. Three days after that, he signed for Trabzonspor.

Tax gives the departure hypothesis some weight, but it does not explain the decision by itself. Salah was also ending one sporting and commercial chapter and beginning another, potentially requiring a fresh arrangement for his image rights, contracts and companies.

Trabzonspor deal guarantees €17m a season

The Trabzonspor agreement provides a new part of the structure.

According to the club’s disclosure to Turkey’s Public Disclosure Platform, Salah will receive €10m in salary and a €7m signing-on fee in each of the two seasons covered by the contract. That amounts to guaranteed payments of €17m per season, before conditional bonuses whose value has not been disclosed.

The filing also sets out an agent fee worth 5% of the player’s total remuneration. That is a separate transaction cost and is not additional money paid to Salah.

A separate agreement gives Salah 20% of sales of products carrying his name through the club’s retail company. The figure does not represent 20% of all Trabzonspor sales or of all income from his image rights in Turkey.

Trabzonspor’s disclosure does not say whether the 20% share will be paid directly to Salah or through one of his companies. Either way, routing the money through a company outside Turkey would not automatically exempt it from Turkish tax. Payments sourced in Turkey could be subject to local withholding or other tax treatment, depending on the nature of the rights, the company’s residence and the relevant double-tax treaty.

If the payments enter Salah’s British company, its profits would fall within the UK corporation tax system, whose main rate is 25%. Had ImageCorp remained in Abu Dhabi, a zero rate would still not have been guaranteed because marketing-related name and image income could be taxed at 9%.

ImageCorp left Abu Dhabi less than two months before Salah signed for Trabzonspor. The key question is therefore no longer simply whether the money goes to Britain or the UAE, but where the company that previously managed Salah’s international image rights is now based and whether it will receive the 20% share of product sales linked to his name in Turkey.

Salah has entered his Turkish phase following a clear redistribution of responsibilities. His main British company remains under his ownership, while its registered management has moved to his wife and a professional accountant. The company previously responsible for his international rights has left Abu Dhabi for an undisclosed jurisdiction, and the Trabzonspor contract creates a separate source of commercial income connected to his name.

Those developments do not, on their own, prove a tax plan. Taken together, however, they show a broad restructuring ahead of Salah’s sporting and commercial move from Britain to Turkey.