Mohamed Salah To Wear 74 As Tribute For Port Said Massacre

Chelsea FC winger Mohamed Salah is going to spend the rest of the 2014/15 season on loan at Serie A club Fiorentina. He was sent to Florence as a make-weight in the deal that saw Juan Cuadrado come to Stamford Bridge for a reported fee of £26.1 million. The Egyptian winger has chosen to wear number 74 during his time in Italy as a tribute to the victims of the Port Said Massacre in 2012.

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On February 1st, 2014, a riot erupted in the Port Said stadium during a match between two Egyptian Premier League clubs, El Ahly and El Masry. El Masry fans attacked the El Ahly supporters with knives, stones, and bottles and the police on site reportedly kept the stadium gates completely closed. They shut in the Ahly supporters and did not allow them to escape the violence, leading to a death toll of 74 with over 500 more injured.

Many believed that the attacks on the Ahly fans were politically motivated and set up by the government at the time. The ultras wing of the Ahly supporters, known as Ultras Ahlawy, were known for their pro-revolution actions and were not in support of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces government which took charge of Egypt after President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.

The riot was seen as a last-ditch effort by the SCAF to wipe out the Ultras Ahlawy in one fell swoop. To add to the suspicion, supporters at the stadium reported that there were no security measures taken and security personnel took no action to quell the riots. Public opinion was nearly unanimous in condemning the riot as politically motivated against the Ultras Ahlawy for their anti-SCAF protests.

The immediate reaction to the massacre was to postpone league matches and a month later, the remainder of the 2011-12 Egyptian Premier League season was cancelled. This severely derailed Egypt’s hopes of qualifying for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2014 World Cup. It also set Mohamed Salah’s career on an entirely different track which saw him explode on to the scene of European football.

FC Basel invited the U23 Egyptian National Team to play them in a friendly in order to see Mohamed Salah in person and he scored two goals against them in just one half of play. He was later invited to train with the club and just weeks later he signed a four year deal with the Swiss club. After impressing on the European stage in both Europa League and Champions League football, including scoring against both Chelsea and Tottenham, Salah put the world on notice that he was the next big thing from Africa.