Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City and Mohamed Salah, the star player for Liverpool, will join the beIN SPORTS commentary team for Qatar’s 2017 World Cup, claims Egyptian journalist Ismael Mahmoud.
Because their clubs were eliminated during the World Cup qualifying rounds, Salah and Mahrez were both unable to participate in the competition in Qatar.
In the March African World Cup qualifying game, Senegal defeated Egypt 3-1 on penalties, breaking the hearts of Egyptian fans.
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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 aforementioned, the Gambian Federation requested the Algerian Federation to issue a public statement denouncing Mr. Belmadi’s actions and all verbal abuse directed at Mr. Gassama by Algerians, as well as to take all necessary precautions to prevent their officials and nationals from making any further disparaging remarks or threatening Mr. Gassama personally.
They added, “If not, their Federation will be held accountable and complicit for any harm that may befall him.”
The match was arbitrated according to the “Laws of the Game and the Protocol of Video Assistance to the Referee,” according to FIFA, who rejected the Algerian appeal.
