Mohamed Salah could miss rest of Egypt's Afcon as injury 'more serious than first thought'

Mohamed Salah's hamstring injury is more serious than initially thought and the Egypt captain could miss the rest of his team's Africa Cup of Nations campaign, manager Rui Vitoria said.

Salah will return to his club Liverpool for treatment on the injury he suffered in last Thursday's 2-2 draw with Ghana in Ivory Coast. The Egyptian Football Association had ruled the forward out of the next two games but now say he would not return until the Afcon semi-finals, should Egypt make it that far.

Earlier, Salah's agent posted on social media on Monday, just before the Pharaohs' crucial final group match against Cape Verde, that he could be sidelined for even longer than the original 10-14 days prognosis.

"Mohamed's injury is more serious than first thought and he will be out for 21-28 days, and not two games," Ramy Abbas Issa wrote on X.

"His best chance at participating in the current Afcon is by undergoing intensive rehabilitation in the UK and rejoining the team as soon as he is fit."

Speaking after the Cape Verde game, which Egypt drew 2-2 to qualify for the last 16 with Salah in attendance, Rui Vitoria said: "I want to take this opportunity to clarify things.

"Mohamed Salah has an injury, which we learned before this game was a longer-term injury than we first thought, so we have had to prolong the amount of time before he can play again.

"Before the game we did not want to say anything. Meanwhile, everything was in the control of our excellent medical team," he said, indicating that it made sense for Salah to go back to Liverpool given the Egyptian squad will now be leaving Abidjan in any case to play a last-16 tie in the coastal city of San-Pedro.

"Given we were going to have to travel, given the temperatures, given that