Liverpool and Egypt star Mohamed Salah has continued to perform an influential role, not only on the pitch for his teams but also off it after a fresh study claimed crimes have been reduced in Liverpool since his arrival.
Since Salah joined Liverpool, no Red has scored more goals than him and on a general level, he has scored more than any other player in the Premier League since arriving in the league in 2017.
Salah’s positive effect can be displayed with his record-breaking achievements with Liverpool throughout the past four years but also off the pitch with his influence.
On top of the plenty of charity work the 28-year-old star does in Egypt, especially in his home city Nagrig, he also represents the moderate and role of the Muslim athlete.
According to an academic paper published in American Political Science Review, hate crimes in Liverpool fell by 16% versus other comparable areas in the UK after Mo Salah joined the club.
“Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control,” the research paper read.
“And Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs.
“An original survey experiment suggests that the salience of Salah’s Muslim identity enabled positive feelings toward Salah to generalize to Muslims more broadly.
“Our findings provide support for the parasocial contact hypothesis—indicating that positive exposure to out-group celebrities can spark real-world behavioural changes in prejudice.”
