FIFA annuls votes for Liverpool's Salah in best awards

ANKARA

FIFA invalidated two votes for Liverpool's Egyptian star Mohammed Salah in the Best FIFA Men's Player ceremony over signature errors, FIFA said.

The governing body said that the votes of Egypt's coach Shawky Gharib and captain Ahmed El Mohamady were not counted since the Egyptian pair's signatures were in capital letters.

"The signatures on the voting forms were in capital letters and thus seemed not valid," FIFA stated.

"During the monitoring of the votes submitted by the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) on August 15, it was remarked that the signatures on the voting forms were in capital letters and thus seemed not valid (not authentic). The voting forms were also not signed by the general secretary which is mandatory." It said.

FIFA added that the voting process was monitored by an independent observer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.

Following the awards ceremony Mohammed Salah removed "Egypt" from his Twitter profile and he shared a tweet "Whatever they do to try to change my love for Egypt, they will not succeed."

Despite invalid votes for Salah, Liverpool's forward became fourth in the voting.

Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi won the FIFA's award for Best Men's Player, defeating Dutch defender Virgil van Dijk and Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo in Monday's polls.