Egypt coach Shawky Gharib has sent Liverpool his side’s Olympic Games itinerary in a bid to ensure Mohamed Salah can represent his country in Japan this summer.

The games will be held in Tokyo and the Reds forward has already been named in Egypt’s preliminary squad as one of three overage players.

The tournament runs between July 23 and August 8, meaning the former Chelsea man would miss a significant chunk if not all of Liverpool’s pre-season preparations.

Speaking recently, Jurgen Klopp was understandably reluctant to be without Salah for pre-season, but did admit he understood the significance of the Olympics.

He said: “We have had to play already without Mo but not too often, thank God, but from time to time we have to, and we will have.

“It’s not about that. All the positive things I could say about Mo I have said in the past. But come on, it’s the Olympic games, I’m still a sports person, the Olympics is the Olympics, but we have to see.

“We will have to see how we deal with it. We can’t really discuss it really because we don’t know anything about it, or not a lot about it.

“But we have heard about some of the things the manager of the Olympic team has said. We have to get in contact or they have to contact us and we will see.”

But despite Klopp’s concerns, Gharib is keen to include Salah in his squad for the competition this summer and is doing all he can to ensure the forward will represent his country in Tokyo.

“Liverpool has been addressed with all the program of the Olympic team, the date of our matches, the city in which we will play, and all matters related to the team,” he said.

Before he continued on the upcoming games: “We are participating in a large international tournament

“We have a group that includes the European champion, the South American champion, the African champion and runners up of the Asian Cup.

“We have been preparing the team for a while and played friendly matches with teams on the same level as the those teams.

“We met with the Egyptian FA president Ahmed Megahed to prepare for the next period.

“Certainly, we will play friendly matches before participating in the Olympics, but our condition is that the encounters have to be against nations already qualified for the finals.

“I have not settled on the team list yet, on May 19 we will hand FIFA a 50-player list.”

Soka25east.com