Egyptian club makes contact with AWOL player after three weeks

May 8, 2023 _ CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s ENPPI said its Burkina Faso winger Eric Traore had made contact with the club at last, having gone missing since walking out of the stadium during a match against Aswan on April 18 after refusing to come on as a late substitute.

ENPPI said earlier the 26-year-old, who was on loan from the Pyramids club, had appeared to go absent without leave, switching off his phones after leaving their stadium in Cairo. Attempts to contact him through his wife and agent had been to no avail, the club said.

But ENPPI football manager Mohamed Ismail told Reuters on Monday: “Traore switched on his phone today and informed us he is still in Cairo, and did not travel abroad, and he promised to come to the club tomorrow.”

“He will be investigated to know why he disappeared and was absent from the club without permission”, he added.

The club, which is run by the state-owned oil company, said earlier that it had informed the Egyptian Football Association that Traore had disappeared but had not filed a complaint.

(Reporting by Ahmed Mostafa and Mohamed Sadek, Writing by Osama Khairy; editing by Nick Mulvenney, Peter Rutherford and Hugh Lawson)