Mo Salah’s Champions League final was over inside half an hour.
Having played such a key role in Liverpool reaching the Kiev final against Real Madrid, Salah landed awkwardly after a tangle with Sergio Ramos, reportedlty dislocating his shoulder. Despite a brief attempt to continue, he soon left the field in tears.
It was a particularly cruel way for the Egyptian’s season to end, and also felt like a significant contributory factor in Real’s victory. Liverpool had been the better side until that point, but Salah’s departure seemed to help the Spanish giants take control of the game.
Though Loris Karius’ errors proved to be the main talking point after full-time, many pointed to the impact Salah’s injury had on the game.
Some Liverpool fans even went as far as suggesting that Ramos – who has since issued an apology to Salah – had intentionally set out to injure their star man, as plenty of tweets showed after the game. Though such claims might seem far-fetched, this is clearly a view shared by lots of people. As well as the tweets, a petition set up on change.org demanded that Fifa and Uefa take action against Ramos for ‘deliberately’ hurting Salah.
Started by user ‘Mohamed Salah Abdel-Hakeem’, the petition’s description reads: ‘Sergio Ramos intentionally kept Mohamed Salah’s arm under his armpit, causing dislocation of his shoulder. Not only missing the rest of the game, but also missing the FIFA World Cup 2018.’
It added: ‘UEFA and FIFA should take measures against Ramos and similar players, using the video recordings of matches to keep the spirit of the game.’
At the time of writing, the petition had passed 130,000 signatures.
Salah now looks likely to miss out on Egypt’s World Cup campaign next month, despite playing an important role in helping them qualify for their first tournament since 1990.
