The EFA said captain Ahmed Elmohamady and then-coach Shawky Gharib both picked Salah as their first choice, but their votes were missing from a list released by FIFA.
The omission prompted the EFA to write to the global governing body to seek clarification.
The EFA said it sent forms with Elmohamady and Gharib’s votes for Salah well before the deadline, but FIFA said the forms were invalid because the signatures were in capital letters and they were 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 19 August 2019,” a FIFA spokesperson told Reuters in an email.
“The Egyptian FA has not submitted a response within the (limited) timeframe until Wednesday, 21 August 2019. Therefore, the votes from the Egyptian FA could not be counted.”
FIFA did not clarify if the final standings would have been any different if the votes had been valid.
Although Egypt’s votes from their captain and coach did not count, their media representative Hany Danial’s choices (Sadio Mane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Salah) were listed on FIFA’s website.
