Last month the Liverpool superstar was clearly unhappy with his country’s FA, after the organisation failed to vote in FIFA’s The Best awards. Salah finished fourth and 20 points behind FIFA Men’s Best Player Lionel Messi, who racked up 46 points following a sublime 51-goal season for Barcelona.
That led to a major investigation in Egypt because even though captain Ahmed Elmohamady and Olympic team coach Shawky Ghareeb both voted for Salah, those votes were not registered.
Those tensions were just the latest in Salah’s tumultuous relationship with the Egyptian FA.
In 2018, Salah’s representatives were increasingly unhappy at how they perceived he had been used as a political pawn during the World Cup, with Salah pictured on a number of occasions with Chechnya leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
There have also been image rights’ issues, with Salah featuring prominently on the outside of the national team’s plane – which was provided by official sponsor ‘WE’ – earlier this year, despite Salah’s own deal with Vodafone.
Now, in their attempt to clean up the recent awards mess has led the country’s FA to ask current captain Ahmed Fathi to give up the armband for Salah.
The 34-year-old, who once spent a spell with Sheffield United and plays in his homeland with Al Ahly, has 131 caps to his name and his agent Nader Shawky, spoke out on the situation on Saturday.
“Yes, [Ahmed] Fathi was requested to give Egypt’s captain armband to Mohamed Salah,” Shawky told ON Sport.
“Fathi was left surprised by this request and turned it down. I think he will not continue with the national team if captaincy was taken off him.
“My personal thought is that Salah himself will reject taking the captain armband from Fathi.”