Despite the Egyptian Football Association confirming that Mohamed Salah will return to Liverpool to recover from a hamstring injury, FIFA rules prohibit the Reds from naming their talisman in any of their matchday squads.
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In the Pharaohs' second group-stage match against Ghana, the two-time CAF Men's Player of the Year suffered an injury that forced him off the pitch, with the record African champions managing to come from behind twice to salvage a 2-2 draw against the Black Stars.
His agent, Ramy Abbas, would go on to confirm that the attacker's hamstring injury was more severe than originally thought, and that he would complete recovery with his club in England and rejoin the national team once he was fully fit.
While those associated with the six-time European champions will likely be happy to hear of Salah's early return to Anfield, Jurgen Klopp will be prohibited from naming his superstar in any matchday squad so long as the north Africans are still participants at the AFCON, as per FIFA regulations.
According to FIFA's Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players: "Clubs are obliged to release their registered players to the representative teams of the country for which the player is eligible to play on the basis of his nationality if they are called up by the association concerned. Any agreement between a player and a club to the contrary is prohibited.
"... For a final competition in the sense of paragraphs 2 and 3 above, players must be released and start the travel to their representative team no later than Monday morning the week preceding the week when the relevant final competition starts and must be released by the association in the morning of the day after the last match of their team in the tournament."
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For as long as the seven-time AFCON winners are in the competition, Salah will be unable to don his club jersey for official matches while he is in England recovering.
The 31-year-old is seemingly still in west Africa, however, after he was pictured celebrating qualification to the next round of the continental showpiece after Egypt's 2-2 draw with Cape Verde on Monday night.
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