The organisers of the recently concluded Balond’or award have revealed how the voting pattern that led to Lionel Messi winning the award went, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
Messi finished ahead of the duo of Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe to claim the award with Nigeria Victor Osimhen finishing in 8th position despite his extra ordinary performance in the season under review.
Osimhen scored 25 goals to power Napoli to their first league title in 33 years. He also became the first African player to win the award for the highest goal scorer in the history of the Italian top division.
Despite that none of the African representative selected for voting placed him as the number one in their list. Even the representative from Nigeria voted Messi in first position in his list with Osimhen in fourth.
Only Nigeria and Zambia placed Victor Osimhen in the 4th position. Surprisingly the representative of Cote d’Ivoire gave Osimhen the highest point by placing him second on his list . He wasn’t listed at all by the representative of Cameroon.
Only few African countries considered the Napoli striker in top 5, as most of them including Nigeria placed Lionel Messi in the 1st position. A stark contrast from the way representatives of other countries voted for their players nominated for the award.
The Napoli forward managed to finished 8th due to the votes he garnerd mostly from voters from other continents. The voters were picked from the country of the top ranked football team in the world by FIFA.
Points are allocated to players based on the position they are placed by voters. As expected the top three position carries the highest number of points. 66 journalists picked Messi as the number one.
Nigeria 🇳🇬 :- Messi
South 🇿🇦 :- Messi
Algeria 🇩🇿 :- Haaland
Benin 🇧🇯 :- Haaland
Cameroon 🇨🇲 :- Mbappe
Ivory 🇨🇮 :- Mbappe
Egypt 🇪🇬 :- Messi
Gabon 🇬🇦 :- Haaland
Ghana 🇬🇭 :- Haaland
Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇳 :- Haaland
Morocco 🇲🇦 :- Messi
Uganda 🇺🇬 :- Messi
Senegal 🇸🇳 :- Haaland
Tunisia 🇹🇳 :- Messi
Zambia 🇿🇲 :- Messi
Cape 🇨🇻 :- Haaland
Mohammed Mowiz Suleiman
