Mo Salah is Missing Egypt’s AFCON Qualifier Tomorrow for the Stupidest Reason Ever

Salah Skips South Sudan Game with Ridiculous Excuse

Food poisoning, video games, a tricycle incident – all have been known to sideline players for one or multiple games, the primary through illness (obviously), and the latter two through bizarre injuries.

But Mo Salah’s withdrawal from the Egypt squad is ahead of their game against South Sudan tomorrow, perhaps tops the charts when it comes to unexpected player absences – and the Egyptian King can’t even put it down to an unfortunate injury!

Instead, Salah will be skipping the AFCON qualification game purely because of fears over the pitch, with the game set to be played on an artificial playing surface.

🚨JUST IN: Mohamed Salah won’t play for Egypt against South Sudan because the game is on artificial turf pic.twitter.com/3LVBuNInLY

— Polymarket Sports (@PolymarketSport) September 26, 2026

Pitch-Poor

I’ve seen some excuses in my time, but nothing has frustrated me more than this one. With a star player like Salah, preservation is obviously at the forefront of everyone’s mind, regardless of whether they are a player or staff.

To avoid their best player getting needlessly injured, that includes resting him now and then to ensure that when he returns, he is in the best possible shape. Salah is a finely tuned footballing machine – naturally he needs some maintenance.

But having been called up for international duty, making himself available and committing to all of the games encompassed within that call-up, the least Salah could do was provide a valid excuse for missing one of them.

He’s not injured, and he’s not even protecting a potential injury – he is avoiding the match simply because of the artificial, 3G surface it is being played on. It seems that Salah, a Premier League great and one of the finest footballers Africa has ever produced, is a bit scared of grazing his knees on the simulated pitch.

He is not the only household name in the squad - Omar Marmoush is there, Nice defender Mohamed Abdulnomen is also there, and both Emam Ashour and Mostafa Zico scored at the World Cup. The difference between them? None of them are pulling out of the squad through a fear of friction burns.

Upon the release of the bizarre news, the Egyptian FA released an accompanying statement – they had to, otherwise Egyptian fans all over would fear a serious injury had afflicted the 34-year-old.

By the way, Mo Salah missing an international game because of the playing surface is possibly the worst excuse I've ever seen.

Artificial playing surface, sure, but I don't see Marmoush pulling out...

— Harry (@HarryPascoe6) September 28, 2026

Their statement read, “The Egypt national team's technical staff, led by Hossem Hassan, has decided to rest Mohamed Salah for the match against South Sudan scheduled for 29 September because of the playing surface.”

“It was agreed between the national teams' technical staff and Mohamed Salah before the Angola match that he would not play against South Sudan, and the technical staff preferred this approach in order to protect the player.”

Look, I get it to an extent – the international break adds significant minutes to an already rammed season, and if a player can get a bit of rest while on international duty, it goes a long way towards preserving fitness and maintaining form over the course of the campaign.

But if given a rest, there must be a good reason. Honestly, a statement reading “We have decided to rest Mo Salah for the upcoming game against South Suden” would have been a magnitude more reasonable than what they ended up actually releasing. It would have perplexed a few, but it would have at least somewhat preserved Salah’s masculinity.

A lot of you will be thinking, “Why can’t he skip the game? He's earned the right to," and I respond to that by asking if that is the example you want to follow. Half of England’s semi-pro sides are playing on artificial pitches, and a significant chunk of many kids' early footballing days are played on these easy-care grounds.

What happens when they start skipping out on training because a professional didn’t like the playing surface they were using? Whether you like it or not, Salah has set a poor example to young kids in Egypt and beyond by opting to sit out the game against South Sudan – if there is another underlying reason being disguised by his dislike of 3G, then it has not become public as of yet.

All Egypt's record goalscorer has succeeded in doing is making himself look a bit wet. Yes, slide tackles and falls on an artificial surface hurt, but there are 21 other players on the pitch with the same problem, and you don’t see them avoiding the game.