Liverpool’s superstar Mohamed Salah and Manchester City’s Riyad Mahrez will join the beIN SPORTS commentary team for Qatar’s upcoming World Cup, according to a report from Egyptian reporter Ismael Mahmoud.
Both Salah and Mahrez failed to qualify for Qatar’s tournament after their teams were eliminated during the World Cup qualifications.
In March, Egypt was defeated 3-1 by Senegal on penalties leaving Egyptian fans gutted in the African World Cup qualifiers.
On the other hand, Mahrez’s Algeria was stunned by a last-minute goal by Cameroonian forward Karl Toko Ekambi, who secured a 2-1 victory for his team.
Earlier this year, Salah said he could attend the tournament in Qatar even if it meant it would not be on the field after his home nation, Egypt, failed to qualify.
“It is possible to be in Qatar during the World Cup, and I feel very happy that the tournament will be held in an Arab country for the first time. And the entire Arab world will support Qatar, and I think the World Cup will be special,” Salah said in an interview with beIN Sports.
No claims have yet to be made by other sources or either footballer.
Calls of complaint
Both Egypt and Algeria filed a complaint to FIFA demanding rematches after failing to qualify.
Lasers were directed at Egyptian footballers during the penalty shootout.
The only consequence by FIFA was fining Senegal’s football federation 175,000 Swiss francs for the green lights matter and for failing to implement safety rules at the stadium.
However, the Egyptian Football Association was dissatisfied with those actions and requested the match be played on “more fitting” grounds.
To this date, FIFA has officially not made any public statements regarding the game.
Algeria pointed fingers at the match referees against Cameroon, calling the game a “scandalous arbitration.”
“The Algerian Football Federation has lodged an appeal with the International Federation of Association Football against the scandalous arbitration which distorted the result of the Algeria-Cameroon play-off return match,” the Federation stated.
The defeat shamed fans and the team, as the football association’s president resigned.
Algeria’s coach Djamel Belmadi took the beating heavily as well.
“We were only 10 seconds away from the World Cup. We collapsed.” Belmadi said after the loss.
Hundreds of Algerian fans demonstrated outside FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich, calling for backtracking of the match.
Blame was pointed toward Gambian Bakary Gassama, who was later defended by his country.
“Based on the foregoing, we’ve also asked the Algerian federation to make a public statement condemning the actions of Mr. Belmadi and all the verbal attacks against Mr. Gassama by Algerians and take all necessary precautions to restrain their officials and nationals from making any further negative remarks and threats against the person of Mr. Gassama,” the Gambian Federation stated.
“Otherwise, their Federation will be held responsible and complicit for any harm that may happen to him,” they further stated.
FIFA rejected the Algerian appeal stating that the match was refereed by the “Laws of the Game and the protocol of video assistance to the referee.”
