Paul Onuachu is having the best season of his career at Trabzonspor, with 20 goals and counting. Now Al Ahli want to take him to Saudi Arabia for €8 million per year. At 31, the Super Eagles striker faces the biggest financial decision of his life.
Paul Onuachu has never earned this kind of money in his life. And Saudi Arabia knows it. Al Ahli, who are bracing for the potential departure of Ivan Toney, have identified the Super Eagles striker as their primary summer target and are ready to table a salary offer of €8 million per year, approximately ₦13 billion annually, according to Turkish outlet NTV Spor. That figure would be more than four times what Onuachu currently earns at Trabzonspor.
The transfer fee isn’t expected to be the obstacle. Trabzonspor is likely to accept around €10 million, a straightforward number for a Saudi Pro League club with near-unlimited resources. The real question, as it always is with these moves, is whether a player at the absolute peak of his form, leading the Turkish Super Lig golden boot race with 20 goals in all competitions this season, wants to take the money and leave European football behind.
The Season That Made Saudi Arabia Call
This wasn’t supposed to happen. When Onuachu moved to Southampton from Genk in January 2023 for a reported £16 million, expectations were high for a player who had scored 33 league goals in a single Belgian season. It didn’t work. He made just seven Premier League appearances, scored once, and was loaned back to Genk before eventually joining Trabzonspor permanently in the summer of 2025.
Turkey has transformed him. Not in terms of technique or movement, Onuachu has always known how to operate in the box. What Trabzonspor gave him was consistent service, a system that values physicality and aerial presence, and the freedom to play as a genuine target man without the tactical constraints of Premier League football, which demand he press from the front for 90 minutes.
The numbers this season are extraordinary. He’s scored in seven consecutive league matches, breaking a Trabzonspor club record that had stood since Fatih Tekke set it during the 2004-05 season. He leads the Super Lig’s aerial duel statistics. He’s accounted for 41.67% of Trabzonspor’s total league goals. His goal against Basaksehir on March 3 in the Turkish Cup was his 20th across all competitions, and he still has months of the season remaining.
That form has Trabzonspor in third place in the Super Lig, chasing Galatasaray and Fenerbahce in a title race no one expected them to be involved in. Onuachu, at the centre of it all, has gone from a Southampton misfit to the most in-form striker in Turkish football. It was only a matter of time before the Saudi scouts circled.
The Case For Going — and Against
Onuachu turns 32 in May. This is the reality every footballer in his position has to reckon with, honestly. The €8 million per year salary Al Ahli are reportedly ready to offer is almost certainly more than he will ever earn at any European club at any point in the remainder of his career. At a €10 million transfer fee, the total financial package across a potential three- or four-year Saudi contract represents a life-changing sum. He has never earned anything close to this, not at Genk, not at Southampton, not at Trabzonspor.
The case against is also real. Onuachu has never played at Europe’s genuine elite level. He’s never played in the Champions League or Europa League. He’s finally at a club where he’s a genuine star, valued, productive, and with a legitimate shot at the Turkish league title. He also holds relevance in the Super Eagles setup, with Nigeria’s upcoming four-nation tournament in Jordan and the final World Cup qualifying matches still to come. A move to Saudi Arabia typically signals the end of serious international consideration, though that calculus is changing slowly.
What Al Ahli Brings to the Table
Al Ahli is not a club to dismiss. Based in Jeddah, they were one of Saudi Arabia’s founding members of the Pro League era’s aggressive recruitment drive, signing players like Roberto Firmino, Edouard Mendy, and Allan Saint-Maximin in their initial phase. They’re now in a transitional period, chasing their former ambitions after some of those marquee signings underperformed or moved on. Ivan Toney, who arrived from Brentford, has been their attacking focal point. His potential departure creates a genuine need at striker, not just a luxury signing, making Onuachu’s profile genuinely attractive.
For a club of Al Ahli’s ambition, a player with Onuachu’s goal-scoring record, his aerial dominance, and his physical presence in the box represents excellent value at €10 million. His recent form makes him arguably the best pure target striker available in the summer window outside of the absolute top tier of European football.
Analysis: Should Onuachu Go to Saudi Arabia?
From a purely football perspective, the honest answer for Onuachu is no. He’s in the form of his career, playing in a system built around his strengths, with a title race to fight for and a Super Eagles squad that still values him. Leaving now, at the moment everything is finally clicking, feels premature for a player who still has two or three elite European seasons left in him if he stays fit.
But football isn’t played in a vacuum. Onuachu has spent his entire career earning the kind of money that comfortable European professionals earn, not life-changing wealth. He spent two full seasons at Genk, where he was scoring 33 goals a season and still couldn’t attract a top-five league club at a serious fee. Southampton was his one shot in the Premier League, and it didn’t come off. The reality is that at 32, the next big European move is probably not coming, regardless of how well he performs in Turkey. Saudi Arabia, for Onuachu specifically, is a different proposition than it was for Karim Benzema or Neymar. This isn’t a star winding down a legendary career with one last payday. This is a player who has always been one step away from the elite, finally getting the financial recognition his talent deserved.
The Super Eagles angle is the only genuine complication. Chelle still sees Onuachu as an option. His scoring record in Turkey is a constant reminder to the national team staff. A Saudi move wouldn’t automatically end his international career, but it would make it harder to justify his selection to a fanbase that wants to see their strikers tested against the best. That conversation, between Onuachu and Chelle’s staff, may ultimately prove as decisive as any financial offer from Jeddah.
For now, Trabzonspor continue to benefit from a striker who is giving them everything. The club will push for maximum goals in the Super Lig run-in. Onuachu’s focus right now, by all accounts, is on the domestic season and staying sharp for the March international break.
The Saudi offer will still be on the table in June. Bet9ja’s promotion code is worth checking for fans who want to back Onuachu’s continued Super Lig form across the remaining Turkish fixtures, where his record makes him one of the most bankable striker picks on the continent right now.
Onuachu’s answer to Al Ahli will come in the summer. For now, Turkey has the real him. And right now, the real him is magnificent.
📌 Did You Know?
- Onuachu scored the fastest goal in Super Eagles history when he netted against Egypt in a March 2019 friendly within the first 10 seconds of the match, a record that still stands today.
- At 2.01 metres tall, Onuachu is one of the tallest outfield players in top-level European football, a physical attribute that has made him one of the best aerial strikers on the continent, leading the 2025-26 Super Lig in headed goals with seven to his name.
- His record 33-goal season for Genk in 2020-21 remains the third-highest single-season tally in Belgian Pro League history, a competition that has produced Romelu Lukaku, Christian Benteke, and numerous other European-level strikers.
- Onuachu’s initial move from FC Midtjylland to Genk in August 2019 was described at the time as an “atypical” transfer by Belgian football media, who were sceptical that a player of his physical profile could adapt to the technical demands of the Belgian league. He proved them spectacularly wrong.
- Al Ahli’s reported €10 million transfer fee target for Onuachu would make him one of the most cost-effective acquisitions in the Saudi Pro League’s history, given that his goal-per-game return this season ranks among the top five in any major European league.
- Onuachu won the Belgian Golden Shoe (footballer of the year) in 2021, making him only the second Nigerian player ever to win the award, after Godwin Okpara claimed it in 2002.
- The Trabzonspor consecutive-scoring record Onuachu broke this season had stood since Fatih Tekke, the current Trabzonspor head coach, set it as a player in the 2004-05 season. Onuachu broke his own coach’s personal record.
