Paul Pogba is a free agent again. Monaco confirmed on Wednesday that they had terminated the 33-year-old’s contract by mutual consent, tearing up a deal that still had until June 2027 to run and bringing an end to a comeback that never really got going.
For a player who won the World Cup and spent six years at Manchester United, it is a sobering place to be with a new season already under way. Here is what happened and where he goes from here.
What Monaco said
The announcement came in a joint statement. Monaco explained that both club and player had reached a shared decision to end the contract, acknowledging that the objectives set when Paul Pogba arrived during last season’s preparation period had only been partially achieved.
The tone was warm rather than acrimonious. The club thanked the 2018 World Cup winner and praised his professionalism, describing an exceptional mentality and real determination in returning to top-level football after such a long absence. Pogba responded in kind, thanking the president, the management, his teammates, the staff and the supporters who backed him, and calling the experience of representing the club an incredible one.
Behind the diplomacy, the numbers tell the story. Reports in France suggest Monaco wanted to part ways as early as the end of 2025, but Pogba persuaded them to be patient.
Why the Paul Pogba comeback stalled
He joined Monaco in the summer of 2025 on a free transfer, having had his Juventus contract terminated in December 2024 while serving a doping suspension. That ban — originally four years, reduced to 18 months on appeal — ran until March 2025 after he tested positive for testosterone following a match in August 2023. Pogba consistently maintained the substance came from a food supplement prescribed by a doctor he had consulted in the United States.
Monaco knew they were signing a player short on fitness and match sharpness after almost two years out. What they could not have anticipated was how little they would get. His debut did not arrive until November, a four-minute cameo off the bench. Last season he managed six Ligue 1 appearances, just one start, and a total of 115 minutes of football.
A calf injury in December ended his involvement almost as soon as it began, and he was dropped from the Champions League squad before Monaco exited at the knockout play-off stage against PSG. He is currently sidelined again with a left thigh strain, having also picked up a knee problem during pre-season.
The wider cost
The fallout extends beyond club football. Paul Pogba has not represented France since 2022, and the persistent fitness problems meant he played no part in this summer’s World Cup — a tournament France entered as favourites with a squad he had publicly rated as stronger than the 2018 side he won it with.
For a midfielder who scored in a World Cup final and won four Serie A titles alongside a Premier League and Europa League double at Old Trafford, the last three years have been brutally unkind. Injuries, a doping ban and an extortion case in which he was the victim have combined to strip away what should have been his peak years.
Could a Premier League return happen?
The obvious question for English audiences is whether any Premier League club takes a punt before the window closes on 31 August.
Realistically, it is hard to see. Paul Pogba is 33, currently injured, and has played 115 competitive minutes in nearly three years. Clubs sign free agents to solve immediate problems, and a player who cannot be relied upon to train consistently does not solve anything. The financial side is less of an obstacle — Monaco are expected to settle a significant portion of his remaining salary — but availability is.
The more plausible routes are a lower-pressure league where expectations are manageable, or a patient club willing to give him a full pre-season with no immediate demands. Saudi Arabia and MLS have both been mentioned in connection with him previously.
There is a precedent worth noting. Mykhailo Mudryk returned to competitive football for Chelsea this summer after a doping suspension of his own was resolved, and looked physically sharp despite a long layoff — a story we covered in our piece on the Mudryk Chelsea return. The difference is that Mudryk is 25 and Pogba is 33, and age is the variable that cannot be trained away.
What happens next
Paul Pogba is free to sign for any club immediately, and being outside the transfer window is no barrier for a free agent. The first step, though, is fitness. Until he can string together a run of training sessions, any conversation about a new club is premature.
He has said before that he wants to keep playing rather than drift out of the game, and there will be clubs willing to gamble on what he was. Whether he can still deliver it is the question nobody, including Pogba, can currently answer.
Elsewhere, the closing days of the window are producing plenty of movement — Barcelona have agreed a package for Manchester City’s Rodri, as we covered in our piece on the Rodri to Barcelona deal, while Liverpool continue to push for PSG’s Bradley Barcola, detailed in our Bradley Barcola Liverpool report.
For the club’s official wording, Goal has the full statement, while OneFootball’s report has the appearance and minutes breakdown.
