The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has written to Fifa for an explanation of its missing votes for the Best Fifa Men’s Player award.
The EFA says that Pharaohs’ acting coach Shawky Gharib and captain Ahmed Elmohamady placed votes for Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah that were not counted.
Neither are included on the voting breakdown on Fifa’s website.
Since the awards ceremony Liverpool striker Mohamed Salah has removed ‘Egypt’ from his twitter handle
His profile now simply reads: “Footballer for Liverpool FC.”
He also posted a tweet which translates: “Whatever they do to try to change my love for Egypt, they will not succeed.”
Barcelona’sLionel Messi won the Best Fifa Men’s Player Award on Monday night ahead of Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo and Salah’s Liverpool team-mate Virgil van Dijk.
In 2018, Salah came third in the men’s award and also took the Puskas Award for goal of the season.
Each nation has three voters: the national team coach, the national team captain and a media representative.
The EFA say that both Gharib and Elmohamady had Salah as their first choices in their votes.
The media representative Hany Danial’s choices were Sadio Mane followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, with Salah in third place.
It is not the first time that Salah has been upset with the EFA following a row last year over his image rights, that saw him threaten to quit the national team.
In its response, Fifa said two votes for Mohamed Salah in the Best Fifa men’s player award were not counted because signatures were in capital letters.
The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) said acting Egypt coach Shawky Gharib and captain Ahmed Elmohamady voted for Liverpool forward Salah.
Fifa said: “The signatures on the voting forms were in capital letters and thus seemed not valid.”
The forms also lacked a mandatory signature by the EFA general secretary.
BBC Reports
