The Liverpool legend, who faced backlash after seemingly downplaying the significance of the tournament, was making a point about Mohamed Salah's Ballon d'Or prospects when he commented: "I think the problem is the fact he's with Egypt, and he's probably not playing in the major tournament as such, or maybe got a great chance of winning, I think it's either the Champions League or the major tournament.

What I would say is, where I got it wrong was, I was clumsy with my language in describing AFCON as 'not a major tournament'.

"I was trying to explain the merits of Mo Salah winning the Ballon d'Or as you've just said and I feel that, not just AFCON, I would say the Asia Games, the Gold Cup, not so much the Copa America, but there's five major tournaments out there besides the World Cup that are for their continents and are obviously a major tournament, but some of them don't resonate with the people who vote for the Ballon d'Or."

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Carragher continued: "That for me was not an opinion, that was like a fact in terms of looking at who has won the Ballon d'Or over the last 40/50 years

So, yes, I have been banging the drum for Mo Salah to become the first African player to win the Ballon d'Or since George Weah in the mid-nineties and as I said, I should have been a lot tidier with my language around that so, yes, that is something I will look at.", reports the Liverpool Echo

"You do look at the Euros, where it's at right now and other competitions, and some of them resonate with Ballon d'Or voters who are journalists, national coaches, national captains

One of the reasons, I think, is sometimes we forget the Ballon d'Or was the European Footballer of the Year so maybe there may be a bias towards the Euros or European football in the past