It wasn't me: Egypt football official denies threatening Mo Salah's mother on Twitter

A leading Egyptian football official has denied having any social media presence after a Twitter account under his name made threats against superstar striker Mohamed Salah.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

29 August, 2018

The controversy comes after Salah accused the FA of failing to respond his complaints [Getty]

A leading Egyptian football official has denied having any form of social media presence after a Twitter account under his name made threats against superstar striker Mohamed Salah.

Khaled Lateif made the denial during a phone-in with a local TV programme on Tuesday evening amid an escalating dispute between Salah and the Egyptian football authorities.

"I want to clarify something very important… I have no Twitter account and everything that has been attributed to me is false," Lateif said.

"Every day I am shocked to find out that it has been reported that I have attacked Salah… and other very strange things," he added.

The denial comes after a Twitter account claiming to be the official account of Lateif warned the Liverpool forward, who has been critical of the Egyptian FA, that his mother "still lives in Egypt".

The account in question, which was suspended on Wednesday, had more than 2,000 followers and was set up in December 2016. Lateif had seemingly not made any move to have the "fake" account shut down at any point in the past year and a half of its seemingly legitimate operation.


	Screenshot of the now-suspended account [Twitter]

The account had also attacked business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, who called for the resignation of the football association's board members.

The controversy comes after Salah accused the FA of failing to respond to complaints regarding security concerns and a violation of image rights in the run-up to the World Cup.

"It's normal that a football federation seeks to solve the problems of its players so they can feel comfortable. But in fact, what I see is exactly the opposite," Salah tweeted on Sunday.

"It is not normal that my messages and my lawyer's messages are ignored. I do not know why all this (is happening)? Do you not have time to respond to us?!" he added.

Ramy Abbas, Salah's agent, said he and his client have asked for guarantees regarding the 26-year-old's "well-being" while on the national team and assurances that his image rights will not be violated again.

Egypt's football association said in a statement on Monday it would discuss Salah's requests.

In a video posted on his Facebook page, Salah fired back at the association, saying his requests were for all players on the national squad to be comfortable in their training camp.

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