MLS Commissioner Bickers With Egypt Director Over Mohamed Salah Rumours

Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber has fired back at Egypt national team technical director Ibrahim Hassan after Hassan suggested that a summer switch to MLS would effectively end Mohamed Salah’s international career.

The spat stems from confirmation that Salah, 33, and Liverpool have mutually agreed to cancel the final season of his contract, leaving the Egyptian icon free to join any non-English club on a Bosman transfer. While Roma have been named in Italian dispatches and Turkey or Saudi Arabia have been floated as speculative destinations, the mere mention of MLS prompted Hassan to warn that Salah must remain in a top-tier European league or, failing that, choose Saudi Arabia over the North American competition.

Garber, speaking to reporters ahead of the weekend’s fixtures, opted for a broadside rather than a direct rebuttal. “Leo Messi is the most popular player in the world,” he said. “He was and still is. I’d be happy to send an Apple subscription to the head of the Egyptian FA so he can watch as many Messi games as he’d like.”

The commissioner framed Hassan’s comments as outdated bias. “I think that point of view is indicative of what MLS deals with as we develop as a major player. I can remember, not that long ago, Mexican national team coaches saying if you’re in MLS you’re not going to play, but that’s not the case today. We’ve also got two or three players for Argentina in MLS.”

Although MLS lags behind Europe’s leading divisions—and even second-tier circuits such as Portugal’s Liga or Turkey’s Super Lig—in competitive pedigree, Garber argued that geography is the Saudi Pro League’s only real advantage from an Egyptian perspective.

Despite the executive back-and-forth, no substantive negotiations linking Salah to an MLS club have been reported, and sources close to the player continue to describe any American move as a remote possibility rather than an imminent reality.