Mohamed Salah’s status as Egypt’s all-time leading goalscorer has come under fresh scrutiny, with conflicting statistical records raising questions over whether the Liverpool forward has scored 68 or 70 goals for the national team.
The debate intensified after Salah scored twice in Egypt’s 5-0 victory over Malawi in the third round of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers on Friday.
Following the match, the Pharaohs captain celebrated what he believed was his 70th international goal by sharing a photograph of himself holding a piece of paper bearing the number 70.
Egypt’s coaching staff and players also joined in the celebrations, presenting the 33-year-old with a national team shirt carrying the same number to mark the achievement.
The occasion was particularly significant because it would mean Salah had moved ahead of current Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan, who finished his international career with 69 goals, to become the country’s outright leading goalscorer.
However, the celebrations quickly reignited a long-running disagreement over Salah’s international statistics. Some football databases credit him with only 68 goals, leaving uncertainty over whether he has officially surpassed Hassan’s record.
The disagreement centres on two matches played by Egypt in 2013, with one in particular raising questions about how FIFA classifies international appearances and goals.
The 2013 match behind Salah’s disputed goal tally
The controversy can be traced back to March 2013, when Egypt faced Swaziland, now known as Eswatini, in a friendly encounter that ended in a convincing 10-0 victory for the Pharaohs.
Salah scored twice during the match, but neither goal was included in his official international tally on several statistical platforms.
The reason was that the encounter was not recognised as an official international fixture because it failed to satisfy FIFA’s requirements for such matches.
Egypt, who were coached by American Bob Bradley at the time, made more substitutions than the regulations permitted. Bradley changed his entire starting formation during the second half, resulting in the match losing its official international status.
Consequently, the two goals Salah scored were excluded from the records maintained by several football statistics providers.
The issue also extends to another friendly against Zambia in the same year, which was similarly excluded from some databases.
FIFA document raises fresh questions about Salah’s record
A document available on FIFA’s official website has now added another dimension to the debate surrounding Salah’s international career.
Statistics platforms such as Transfermarkt list the Egyptian forward as having scored 68 goals in 121 appearances for his country. Their records exclude the matches against Swaziland and Zambia in 2013 because they were not considered official international fixtures.
However, FIFA’s document listing footballers who have made more than 100 international appearances provides a different figure for Salah’s number of matches.
According to the document, the Egyptian captain had accumulated 122 international appearances before facing Malawi. The record covers his international career from his first appearance against Sierra Leone in 2011 through to the match against Angola in September.
That figure is one appearance higher than the 121 matches recorded by Transfermarkt, suggesting that FIFA’s records recognise an additional fixture that is absent from the statistics website’s database.
The discrepancy has therefore strengthened the argument that Salah’s two goals against Swaziland could be included in his international record, taking his overall tally to 70.
If that interpretation is correct, Salah has indeed moved beyond Hossam Hassan’s 69-goal record and become Egypt’s highest-scoring international player.
The FIFA document is particularly significant because it is an official record published by football’s world governing body, rather than information compiled by individual statistics websites.
The report also distinguishes the document from other figures circulating online, some of which have reportedly been modified in recent hours, adding to the confusion surrounding the Egyptian forward’s achievement.
For now, the disagreement between the different statistical records continues to dominate discussion, with the FIFA document providing an important piece of evidence in support of Salah’s claim to the historic milestone.
