On April 11, Mo Salah threaded the ball to Luis Diaz, who belted it past the West Ham goalkeeper. Liverpool fans burst out in joy at Anfield, the club’s historic home ground. They were one step closer to the Premier League title — the top spot in England’s leading professional soccer league. And all speculation about Salah’s future had ended: The Egyptian winger had signed a new club contract, and he was staying. If the Reddit fan forums are anything to go by, his reported price tag of 380,000 pounds ($506,000) a week was worth it, especially since they won the Premier League title the following week, with Salah himself on the score sheet.
By the time Salah’s contract ends, he will have played for the club for a decade, becoming as integral to Liverpool as the Beatles or the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, when 97 Liverpool fans were crushed to death in an overcrowded stadium — a defining moment in the city’s history and British sports. In a city where soccer is a religion, Salah has become both a star player and a symbolic saint.
But more than a model player, he will be seen as a model of inclusion, someone who has challenged and changed attitudes in the city. Salah’s open displays of faith, especially after scoring, fill the terraces with chants about him being a “gift from Allah” or suggesting that fans will convert to Islam if he scores a few more.
The press were quick to frame Salah’s acceptance as a beacon of multiculturalism, especially since soccer has usually been seen as a white working-class sport linked to hooliganism and racism. But the fact that Liverpool saw far-right riots last summer raises the question: Is the so-called Salah effect only skin deep — and is using him as a symbol of inclusion and diversity, in itself, problematic?
Salah joined Liverpool in 2017, after a brief stint at Chelsea. Under the management of Juergen Klopp, Salah began to make an impact on the pitch. He picked up several Golden Boots — awarded to the league’s top scorer — along with trophies, league titles and over 200 goals, securing his place as one of the club’s all-time greats.
Muslim community leaders said that Salah’s impact, along with his former teammate Sadio Mane’s presence, helped normalize Muslim identity in Liverpool, with viral images showing Salah reading the Quran or Mane cleaning a mosque after Friday prayers.
This impact went beyond symbolic gestures. Researchers at Stanford noted a correlation between Salah’s arrival and a 16% drop in hate crime in Merseyside, as well as a halving of anti-Muslim tweets. Researchers concluded that growing familiarity with Salah contributed. This effect is, of course, not unique to Salah but applies to other celebrities, too. Growing familiarity with Jackie Robinson, the first African-American major league baseball player, had a similar effect on a deeply prejudiced American public in the 1940s and ’50s. His successes paved the way for other African-American players in the sport.
While Salah’s impact may be anecdotal, the Stanford study suggests it was real. I certainly remember the impact that the Dutch soccer star Ruud Gullit had on Chelsea in the ’90s. As someone who grew up in the shadow of Stamford Bridge stadium, I saw firsthand how the club went from being a far-right bastion of Combat 18 — a neo-Nazi group linked to soccer hooliganism — to a global club with a diverse fan base when he arrived. But then, his arrival coincided with good economic times, too.
But while Salah’s story demonstrates the potential of celebrity influence in countering entrenched social prejudice, last year’s riots in Merseyside and the rest of the U.K. also showed its limitations. Salah’s influence simply couldn’t reverse the endless press coverage that had been given to far-right voices and the demonization of migrants and ethnic minorities. Even a Salah family Christmas card — matching pajamas and all — couldn’t plaster over the cracks: Brexit, Islamophobia, a country adrift. Salah’s smiling face could not bridge the widening gap between rich and poor, the economic downturn and creaking infrastructure affecting the whole country.
And that’s what we saw when a British teenager of Rwandan heritage, Axel Rudakubana, mercilessly killed three little girls in the small seaside town of Southport, Merseyside, in July 2024. The mass stabbing led to the local mosque being attacked and sparked nationwide riots in the U.K.
Though the attacker was not a Muslim, a social media post named him as Ali Al Shakati. Anti-Muslim tensions were fuelled by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), and the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, followed by a pile-on from tech bros like Elon Musk and right-wing politicians like Nigel Farage, known for his role in campaigning for Brexit.
To some, that summer felt like a modern-day Kristallnacht, with images of rioters smashing shops and terrorizing neighborhoods. It made many British Muslims contemplate emigration as a “Plan B” to escape rising hostility.
There was also disbelief at how Liverpool, seen as traditionally left-wing and anti-fascist, could find the far right marching in the city. The city, which prided itself on its Irish immigrant heritage, for being Scouse rather than English — a local identity that resists national stereotypes and celebrates Liverpool’s distinctiveness — appeared to have changed. The summer riots seemed like a return to the race riots of the past in 1919 and 1948, when demobilized soldiers couldn’t tolerate the presence of Black people in the city.
Some activists tried to blame outside agitators, but this ignored the fact that there had been other racial flare-ups before the riots. In February 2023, a hotel in Knowsley was targeted by the far right because it housed asylum-seekers. Local press reported that areas such as Bootle and St Helens were prime recruiting grounds for the far right, with children being referred to Prevent, the U.K.’s counter-extremism program aimed at stopping radicalization.
In 2015 and 2018, far-right groups tried to march through the city but were met by large counterprotests. By contrast, in August 2024, the far right rampaged through the city, causing havoc. Invoking Salah did not prevent them from destroying public buildings.
The truth is that Salah couldn’t paper over Merseyside’s fissures. The city wasn’t immune to the rise of the far right, which had been trying to make inroads there for decades. The political and economic climate proved fertile ground and contributed to the white working class embracing far-right ideologies.
Kick It Out, a British anti-racism group that monitors discrimination in soccer, reports that during the 2023-24 season, racist abuse rose by 47%, from the grassroots level to the professional game. And almost as a slap in the face for the Salah effect, there has been a 138% rise in Islamophobic incidents.
That is the problem with Salah being held up as a symbol of inclusion — the symbolism is fragile. His acceptability is conditional, dependent on performance, politeness and political silence. Rather than challenging stereotypes, he risks reinforcing the “good immigrant” trope: praised when successful, pathologized when flawed.
That pattern runs deep in Western society: In Mohsin Hamid’s novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” the protagonist Changez is a model “good immigrant.” He is valued as long as he enriches his firm, but once he thinks for himself or becomes even slightly “uppity,” he’s seen as a threat — and even marked for elimination.
Neither Changez nor Salah is allowed to err. If Salah took Saudi money to join that country’s nascent soccer league, he would be vilified as greedy. If, God forbid, he lashed out like Zinedine Zidane did to Marco Materazzi after the latter insulted his sister during the World Cup in 2006, he would be demonized.
Just look at the fate of other soccer stars. After Mesut Ozil got flak for being photographed alongside the Turkish president, he famously remarked: “I’m a German when I win, Turkish when I lose.” Or consider the racist vitriol Bukayo Saka faced from England fans after missing a penalty in the Euro 2020 final. When players fall short, even slightly, the goodwill evaporates.
This isn’t just about soccer. Muhammad Ali, despite his talent and charisma, was branded unpatriotic and vilified for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, an NBA Hall of Famer who spoke out for civil rights and didn’t court the press, was often painted as difficult, simply for choosing integrity over likeability. Then there are the “bad boys,” like American heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, who openly courted white women in the early 20th century.
In many ways, Salah reinforces racist tropes of his host country. As Nikesh Shukla, editor of the essay collection “The Good Immigrant,” points out: Immigrants “steal your jobs, your women, your place in the waiting room at the GP surgery. We have to earn our place at the table, not be a nuisance, contribute to society but without taking away opportunities for real British people. The line between good and bad is fickle and unreasonable.” As long as Salah keeps on winning and scoring goals, Muslims will be “good,” and Liverpool fans will continue their chants. But if he doesn’t, what then? Salah, through no fault of his own, has set an impossible standard that white fans expect of people of color, and it fails to see them for what they are — human.
But perhaps this is not just about how Western societies treat their high-performing minorities when they attain greatness, but about how all human societies treat their heroes. Liverpool fans see Salah as a gift from God. Among his countrymen, he is loved for building health, education and administrative institutions, and for donating regularly to orphans. Yet they complain about his less-than-stellar performance for the national team. To some Arabs, his donations to Gaza’s victims and his call for a ceasefire were enough; to others, they were not. He is praised for defending women’s rights — and blamed for defending a teammate accused of sexual harassment. His interfaith Christmas card draws admiration and criticism from Muslim fans every year.
Maybe the lesson to draw from Salah lies not in what he does or doesn’t do, but in how we burden our greatest athletes with so much hope and symbolism that we do not allow them their humanity — to be flawed, to fail, and still belong.
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