Coronavirus: Egypt, Liverpool star Mohamed Salah tests positive ahead of Togo match

Egyptian footballer and Liverpool star Mohamed Salah tested positive for coronavirus, the Egyptian Football Association announced Friday.

Testing results showed “our international player and Liverpool star Mohamed Salah to be infected with coronavirus … despite not having any symptoms,” a tweet from the Egyptian FA said.

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No other players tested positive.

Salah’s positive test result comes ahead of Egypt’s Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match on Saturday against Togo.

Photographs and videos of Salah — in some of the images, without a face mask to protect against the virus — dancing among dozens of people at his brother’s wedding, held earlier this week in Cairo, have gone viral on the social media over the past days.

Salah was the first Egyptian player to become a Premier League champion — global stardom gained on the strength of a single brilliant season with Liverpool, which he joined in 2018 from Roma — and is beloved among fellow Egyptians who see him as a sign of hope for a third-world country battered by poverty and years of political turmoil.

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- With AP