Nunez agrees to leave Al-Hilal as Chelsea move to the front of the queue
Darwin Nunez has reached an agreement with Al-Hilal to leave at the end of the 2025-26 season, less than a year after his £46 million move from Liverpool, with Chelsea now sitting at the front of a queue of European clubs hoping to take him back into a competitive league.
The 26-year-old Uruguayan has not featured for Al-Hilal since February, when Saudi Pro League squad rules forced the club to make a choice. The arrival of Karim Benzema in January pushed Al-Hilal up against the league's eight-player limit on foreign players born before 2003. The decision was Nunez or someone else, and the calculation went against Nunez.
A short, expensive Saudi spell
Nunez moved to Riyadh last August in a deal worth £46 million to Liverpool, with the player roughly doubling his Anfield salary on a contract reportedly worth around £400,000 a week. He scored six goals and added four assists in 16 league appearances before the de-registration that ended his season in mid-February. He has spent the months since training away from the matchday squad and waiting for a route back to Europe.
That route is now open. The agreement with Al-Hilal does not yet have a fee attached to it in any of the public reporting, and the club's negotiating posture is the variable to watch. Al-Hilal paid more than the going rate for the player a year ago, were left holding the contract once Benzema arrived, and now have to decide whether to recoup or to clear the wage and move on.
Chelsea lead the queue, Juventus and others circling
Chelsea have been the most consistently named English club in this story, with the link traced back as far as March. Stamford Bridge has spent the season cycling through centre forwards: Joao Pedro has carried the bulk of the league goals, Liam Delap has rotated in and out, and Nicolas Jackson is now on loan at Bayern Munich. Liam Rosenior, who took over from Enzo Maresca in January before being sacked in April, did not have a settled number nine to plan around. Nunez's profile, when it works, is exactly the kind of vertical, broken-line runner that thrives in a system built around Cole Palmer and Pedro Neto.
Juventus are the named Italian interest, monitoring the situation rather than openly bidding. Newcastle were credited with an early look in the spring. Whether any of them are willing to absorb a wage that Al-Hilal could afford and a Premier League club typically would not is the question that decides whether this becomes a clean deal or a long, attritional summer story.
The motivation for Nunez is straightforward. The 2026 World Cup begins next month, and a striker who has not played a competitive match since February cannot expect to walk into Marcelo Bielsa's plans. He needs minutes, and he needs them in a league where the rest of the South American squad is watching. Saudi Arabia, with him out of the registered squad, no longer offers either.
Where he ends up will say something about Chelsea's read of the centre forward market this summer. If they want him, they will probably be able to get him.
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