Update on Mo Salah and two other Liverpool stars’ potential Olympics involvement issued – The Athletic

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Mo Salah, Ibrahima Konate and Taki Minamino are expected to miss out on the Tokyo Olympics, as reported by The Athletic.

Liverpool are particularly reluctant for the Egyptian to take part given that the club is already set to lose out on the forward during the African Cup of Nations.

“Takumi Minamino (Japan) and Ibrahima Konate (France) have also been linked with involvement in the Olympics but Anfield officials don’t expect to have any players participating in Tokyo,” James Pearce wrote.

The No.11 is said to be looking to resolve the matter with the Premier League outfit, with the Egyptian FA remaining keen on having the frontman available for the competition in question.

“We contacted Liverpool to allow Salah to join the Olympic team, and they said they were waiting for the approval of the technical staff,” Egyptian FA president Ahmed Megahed was quoted as saying by ONTime Sport (via The Athletic).

“But, in the end, Liverpool refused the request because they do not want to lose the player at the beginning of the season, as well as next January with the Africa Cup of Nations, which will keep him from participating in the English Premier League matches.

“We spoke with Salah again, and he told us that he will make a new attempt with the technical staff of his team, to resolve the matter, and within the next two days he will find a way.”

READ MORE: Liverpool will not force exit of four fringe stars but remain open to offers – report

The club’s reluctance to hand over the 29-year-old prior to the beginning of pre-season, given we’ll be losing one of our key men for a number of games in January, is completely understandable.

Evidently, there are two sides to the story, of course, with Egypt’s hopes at the Olympics largely resting on Salah’s shoulders.

Nonetheless, taking into account the demands of the prior season, with an extremely crammed fixture schedule, we at the EOTK would argue that allowing the player to go to both tournaments would be putting his wellbeing at risk.

Given that the club ultimately pays his wages, we should have some say in the former Roma star’s level of participation for the national side – especially when considering the adverse impact burning out our top-scorer could have on our next campaign.

Liverpool are reportedly keen on Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s heir… but there’s a pretty big catch attached

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