Egyptian FA insisted their two representatives had voted for Liverpool star and demanded explanation from FIFA
Thursday 26 September 2019 16:15, UK
Egypt's votes for Mohamed Salah were not counted for the Best FIFA Men's Player award because the signatures were in capital letters, FIFA has revealed.
The Egyptian FA claimed that acting head coach Shawky Gharib and captain Ahmed Elmohamady had both voted for Salah to win the award, which went to Lionel Messi for a sixth time.
Neither Gharib nor Elmohamady were included on the voting breakdown on FIFA's website - prompting an angry response from Salah, who removed the word 'Egypt' from his Twitter bio.
He also posted a tweet, which translates as: "Whatever they do to try to change my love for Egypt, they will not succeed."
The Egyptian FA insisted their two representatives had voted for Salah and demanded an explanation from FIFA as to why the votes were not counted in the final ballot.
FIFA has since revealed that the signatures on Egypt's ballots "were in capital letters and thus seemed not valid (not authentic)", and that "voting forms were also not signed by the [federation] general secretary which is mandatory."
The Egyptian FA were then contacted by FIFA for confirmation of the ballots, then submitted "two reminders to submit the properly signed voting forms on August 19."
The coach of Sudan and the captain of Nicaragua have also claimed inaccuracies regarding their votes, saying their submissions published by FIFA under their names were not for the player they actually chose.
But FIFA says it checked the voting documents submitted by their FAs and all these documents are signed and confirmed with official stamps.
FIFA has subsequently asked for the Nicaraguan and Sudanese FAs to inquire on this matter.
