Salah may miss Liverpool’s pre-season as Egypt want him for Olympics
Mohamed Salah could be absent for the beginning of the 2020-21 Premier League season after Egypt confirmed their intention to call up the Liverpool forward for the Olympics.
Egypt’s Under-23s boss Shawky Gharib said that Salah would be one of three permitted overage players selected for this summer’s Games in Tokyo, although conceded that he has yet to discuss the matter with the 27-year-old.
Egypt qualified for the Olympics after reaching the final of the Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations in Cairo last year.
“Out of the three senior players we’ll call-up, Salah is the only one we’re settled on so far because he’s simply one of the top three players in the world,” Gharib told Egyptian broadcaster ON Sport.
“I haven’t talked to Salah at all about him joining the U23 squad for the Olympics, but in all honesty, his participation in the Olympics will need a little effort from him as well.”
The men’s tournament begins on July 23, with the group stage finishing on July 29 and the quarter-finals and semi-finals taking place on August 1 and August 4 respectively.
The gold medal match is due to take place on August 8 – the same day as the 2020-21 English top-flight season is scheduled to kick off.
Salah – due to a dislocated shoulder suffered in the Champions League Final defeat to Real Madrid – was not fully fit at the World Cup in Russia in 2018 as Egypt’s senior side crashed out of the group stage with a hat-trick of defeats, while the hosts were stunned by South Africa in the last 16 of the Africa Cup of Nations last July.
AFCON will revert back to its old January/February time slot in 2021 – another period when Liverpool are set to be without Salah as well as Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Guinea international Naby Keita.
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Liverpool boss Klopp has previously blasted that particular decision and also admitted last month that it would not be ideal for Salah to go to the Olympics.