A second absence: has Mohamed Salah bid farewell to the Ballon d'Or dream for good?
The Egyptian star was nominated six times and achieved his best positions last year
Egypt's Mohamed Salah, the former Liverpool star now with Turkey's Trabzonspor, has been left off the list of nominees for the 2026 Ballon d'Or, awarded to the world's best player.
France Football magazine, in cooperation with European football's governing body UEFA, unveiled the full list of nominees on Tuesday. Salah's absence had been widely expected.
Lacklustre numbers
Salah failed to hit his usual heights last season in the shirt of his former club Liverpool. He won no collective silverware with the team, and his individual numbers dropped off badly.
The Egyptian played 41 matches for Liverpool across all competitions, scoring only 12 goals, 7 of them in the Premier League. That was a poor return next to the previous campaign, when he scored 34 goals in 52 matches across all competitions.
On the international stage, Salah led Egypt to a historic achievement by reaching the round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup for the first time in the country's history. Even that did not count in his favour.
His impact, though, was not great. The 34-year-old scored one goal and provided 2 assists in 5 matches at the tournament, held in the summer.
Absent for the second time
This was not the first time Salah had missed out on the world's most important individual award. He was also left off the list in the 2024 edition, which Spain's Rodri won.
Yet the Egyptian has competed for the award on 6 other occasions, all of them during his time with Liverpool. The most recent came last year, in 2025, when he achieved his best result by finishing fourth, after winning the Premier League title. Ousmane Dembélé was crowned in that edition.
Salah earned his first nomination in 2018 and finished sixth, after his debut season with Liverpool.
His brilliance continued the following year. Nominated again in 2019 after lifting the UEFA Champions League, he finished the race in fifth place.
The award was cancelled in 2020, the very year Salah won the Premier League title for the first time in his career. He was then nominated in 2021 and finished seventh.
Another appearance on the list followed in 2022, when he took fifth place, before slipping to 11th in 2023, his worst position.
Is the Ballon d'Or dream over?
Given his advancing age, and with current club Trabzonspor nowhere near competing for titles in the Turkish league or the major European competitions, Salah looks a long way from challenging for the Ballon d'Or.
He came very close more than once, though. Never closer than last year, when he shone as the most prominent figure in Liverpool's return to the top with the Premier League title.
Many saw Salah as the Arab player capable of being crowned with the Ballon d'Or for the first time. The circumstances of his career never quite lined up, and right now the dream looks distant.
The Egyptian has managed only to win the African Ballon d'Or twice, in 2017 and 2018.
