Ex-England defender Stuart Pearce has hit out at Liverpool for denying Mohamed Salah a chance to play at the 2020 Olympic Games.
The 29-year-old wanted to be part of the Egypt team in the competition that will be held in Tokyo, Japan.
However, the Reds are reluctant to let one of their key players leave considering the fact that they want all their players fit to challenge for the Premier League title next season.
But the former centre-back is unhappy with the club's stance over the attacker who wants to be part of the squad to play in the Olympics.
"Of course Jurgen Klopp doesn’t want Salah at the Olympics because he’s supposed to look after the interests of Liverpool Football Club," Pearce told talkSPORT.
"You want Mo Salah to stay, but if I was a manager of a club or a coach I would never, ever stop a player representing his country, whatever level that might be.
"If I was a manager at any club and a player came to me and said to me, ‘I want to represent my country, I would not be selfish enough to turn around and say, ‘no’.
"All the international experiences I’ve had as a footballer, the biggest achievement of my football career is captaining my country.
"For me to then step into the world of management and have a total sea change, which managers do, by the way, all of a sudden international managers ring me up and say ‘release this player, release that player’ then they become club managers and try to block their players."
The 59-year-old has further suggest the Olympics are bigger than the World Cup and one cannot understand its magnitude until one has a chance to experience it.
"It blows your mind how big the Olympics are. They are bigger than the World Cup. As a global event, the Olympics are bigger than the World Cup," Pearce continued.
"The World Cup is just football, by the way, the Olympics is every sport. You don’t understand how big the Olympics are until you’re on the inside of it, the vastness of it, the kitting out of it."
The English charges have also denied Takumi Minamino and Ibrahima Konate a chance to represent Japan and France, respectively, in the aforementioned competition.