Paul Pogba is no longer an AS Monaco player. The Principality club and the French midfielder have agreed to terminate the contract, which had originally been signed in June 2025 and was set to run until June 2027.
In its statement, Monaco referred to objectives set by both parties that had only been 'partially achieved'. A cautious phrasing to convey the essential point: the gamble did not work out as planned.
The Paul Pogba card
Yet the comeback had all the makings of a powerful symbol. Pogba joined Monaco after a doping suspension incurred at Juventus, reduced from four years to eighteen months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March 2025. His arrival on the Rocher marked his return to professional football.
But his body did not cooperate. Calf discomfort, followed by a hamstring injury sustained during the pre-season training camp in England, limited his first season in Monaco to six matches, only five of which came as substitute appearances.
'Representing this club and the Principality was an incredible experience,' Pogba said when the announcement was made. The club's CEO, Thiago Scuro, for his part recalled the 'bold and ambitious' nature of the project, while acknowledging that 'the outcome is not what we had hoped for'.
Without a club, Pogba's name is now being linked with MLS, where DC United and Inter Miami had already been mentioned in the past, as well as with Saudi Arabia — a country where he has also become a shareholder and ambassador for a camel racing team, Al Haboob Camel Racing Team.
It remains to be seen whether a club will agree to take up the Monaco-style gamble on a player whose talent has never been in question, but whose physical reliability still remains entirely to be proven.
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