This archive report was first published on 27 September 2019.
On August 19, 2019, the deadline for FIFA's The Best awards voting forms was supposed to be met by the Egyptian Football Association (EFA). However, their captain Ahmed Elmohamady and then-coach Shawky Gharib's votes for Mohamed Salah were mysteriously missing from the list released by FIFA on August 19, 2019.
The EFA promptly wrote to FIFA to seek clarification on the missing votes, citing that they had sent the forms with Elmohamady and Gharib's votes well before the deadline.
FIFA, however, disputed the EFA's claim, stating that the forms were invalid because the signatures were in capital letters and not signed by the EFA general secretary, which was mandatory.
"The Egyptian FA have received two reminders to submit the properly signed voting forms on August 19, 2019," a FIFA spokesperson told Reuters in an email.
"The Egyptian FA has not submitted a response within the (limited) timeframe until Wednesday, August 21, 2019. Therefore, the votes from the Egyptian FA could not be counted," the spokesperson added.
