My understanding of this code: <span class="link">text</span> is that it should link to a specific glossary item. In this case it would be a glossary entry for the word text. However, it doesn't seem to generate the link.
I've successfully used: <span class="nolink">text</span> to break the glossary link.
Both of these are documented: https://docs.moodle.org/32/en/Autolinking
Why is a link not being generated for <span class="link">text</span>?