Do we like Mohamed Salah?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful in his own words, a long record of giving, and one contested stance plus a messy exit from Liverpool.
Salah grew up in Nagrig, a small, poor village in Egypt's Gharbia region, about 130 km north of Cairo, and he never really left it behind. The kid from the Delta became one of the most recognisable footballers on the planet, and the village still gets a big share of what he earns.
The newest chapter is the move to Turkey. AFP reported he signed a two-year deal with Trabzonspor on 6 August after leaving Liverpool at the end of his contract, on a reported record salary for the Turkish league. He said he was “really happy” to be there.
The Liverpool exit wasn't tidy. In December 2025, after sitting on the bench for a draw at Leeds, he said it seemed the club had thrown him under the bus, and that he and manager Arne Slot had no relationship. That's a footballer's fury at his own club, not a mark against his character, but it shows a bloke who speaks his mind.
The harm check comes up clean. On Gaza in October 2023 he called for the massacres to stop and for aid to be let in, saying all lives were sacred. Critics have pushed him to say more, and he was slammed in 2021 for not mentioning Palestine, but that is a question of how loudly he speaks, not of harm. I found nothing from him on LGBTQ+ people either way, so that part of the record is simply empty.
The real stain is the Amr Warda affair in 2019. A teammate was accused online by a model of unwanted messages and harassment, and Egypt's federation dropped him from the squad. Salah tweeted that “shunning is not the answer” and that “no means no”, which fans split over: some read it as compassion, others as going soft on a man accused of harassing women.
Away from the pitch, a former lawyer is suing him in Cairo, alleging he is owed payment for legal and administrative work dating back to 2015. The court ordered Salah to appear and take an oath, and the article carried no response from him. It is an unresolved civil dispute, not a finding against him.