It was an anti-climax end for Nigeria at the recent Glo-CAF Awards when the African Footballer of The Year crown slipped away from the country once more, reports ’TANA AIYEJINA
It was time for the highlight event of the 2013 Glo-CAF Awards: The African Footballer of The Year category, inside the Eko Convention Centre, Eko Hotels and Towers, Lagos.
Nigeria, host country, had dominated the Thursday night event, winning six of the first 10 categories of the Glo-CAF Awards.
But the moment everyone looked forward to was here. No Nigerian player has been named the African Footballer of The Year since Nwankwo Kanu last won it in 1999.
The nominees for the 2013 edition were Nigerian Chelsea midfielder Mikel Obi, and the Ivoirian duo of Manchester City’s Yaya Toure and Galatasaray striker Didier Drogba.
“Who will win this award,” former Nigeria captain and host of the event, Sunday Oliseh, asked.
“Obi,” guests at the event, mainly Nigerians, screamed.
Oliseh thereafter, went ahead to deliver the killer punch.
“Please no heart attacks; the winner is Yaya Toure,” Oliseh announced.
The silence that immediately engulfed the noisy hall was akin to that of a graveyard. One could see the sudden change of expression on the faces of hitherto ecstatic members of the Nigeria Football Federation: Emeka Inyama, Chris Green and Ademoia Olajire.
It told the story of how most Nigerians felt: they would have to wait longer again to see their player win.
The controversy that has trailed the awards, which has been viewed as favouring players from Francophone countries, came up.
In recent times, the likes of Austin Okocha, Mohamed Aboutreika (Egypt) and Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan, who lost to players from Francophone nations, in previous were seen as better candidates for the diadem.
Several questions were begging for answers in this edition: Was Toure truly deserving of the award? Why was Drogba in the final shortlist but was not included in the African XI?
Statistics from the Confederation of African Football showed that 41 countries voted, with Toure polling 373 to emerge winner ahead of Mikel (265) and Drogba (236).
But for most guests at the event and even beyond, giving the award to Toure for a third consecutive time was daylight robbery.
“I think they came to rob us. I don’t know where they got the effrontery from. It shouldn’t be now when Mikel has everything going for him. I am heartbroken, honestly. I don’t think this is fair,” ace broadcaster, Bisi Olatilo, said.
“You would have noticed that as soon as they announced the winner, the whole hall became empty. I was so sad for P-Square; they weren’t as entertaining as they should have been because there was nobody to watch them,” he added.
Olatilo said what happened was an eye-opener, advising that Nigerians should be involved in the administration of the game at the continental level.
He added, “It’s unfortunate; I think it has to do with a game of numbers now. It’s time for us to wake up. The NFF should wake up and stop the bickering that has robbed us of a lot of things. We should be speaking with one voice now. It just showed that we need to have more people at the CAF executive board.”
A guest at the event, Chris Imoke, could only resign himself to fate.
“What has happened has happened, what can we do? Everybody is disappointed; everybody cannot be wrong,” he said.
Aggrieved Head of Technical Department, NFF, Chris Green, queried the rationale for selecting Toure for the awards.
He insisted that after helping both club and country to continental trophies in 2013, Mikel and not the Ivoirian should have been given the honour.
Green said, “I congratulate Toure, he’s a very good player but I want to ask how they arrived at his choice because this does not encourage players. Look at everybody carrying long faces; it means the decision was not right. We are not happy because we don’t deserve to come second.
“If you name the Eagles as the Team of The Year, why won’t you name Mikel as the Footballer of The Year? Awards are not just organised for fun, so we need to ask for the criteria they used in selecting the winners.
“Toure won nothing last season but Mikel won the Africa Cup of Nations and Europa Cup, represented Africa at the Confederations Cup and helped Nigeria qualify for the World Cup.
“The right things should be done. All the categories we won, we deserved them and we also deserved to win the African Footballer of The Year category.”
Green said the absence of Nigerians in CAF was not the reason behind the decision arguing that the voting system was the problem.
“It’s not a matter of being part of CAF. It’s the voting pattern. How many are they in CAF to sway votes? I have to be very realistic. CAF has no hand in this. It’s all about coaches and captains of national teams and maybe journalists who are involved in voting.
“They should address the way they do their voting system. Let them bring the votes and let’s see the criteria they used for voting. That’s the most important thing for me. We need to know.
“(Mohamed) Aboutreika deservedly won the version for players playing in Africa and nobody is complaining but if you are picking a player from Europe, we should also see how that player has performed. It goes to show that even if Mikel had won the World Cup, he would not have been selected as the winner.
“He (Mikel) should put it behind him. As a sportsman, you win some and lose some. For me, he is a gallant winner; he won today (Thursday). He should keep working hard and one day, he will surely be recognised.”
Even the mascots at the ceremony were not left out of the anguish of the night.
“Tonight everyone is unhappy; I am unhappy too even though I am a mascot. The winner should have been Mikel and not Toure. Even non-Nigerians are not happy,” one of them said
Olympic gold medalist, Emmanuel Babayaro, however said Toure was the right choice for the award.
He said, “The award is for the best in Africa and it is more individualistic. You must agree with me that individually, you cannot pick out any Nigeria match that you will say Mikel is the reason why we won. But you can pick matches that Yaya made the difference for both club and country. Without sentiment, I will say the right person won it.
“People say the Francophone issue came to play again but was this matter not there when Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke, Victor Ikpeba and Nwankwo Kanu won it? The other awards we won were deserved and nobody complained.”
But street urchins popularly known as Area Boys, who were at the venue in large numbers, were less bothered about who was crowned king of African football that night.
For them, what mattered was what they could extort from the winner, Toure and other personalities at the event.
“What we are interested in is who gives us money, not who wins the awards,” one of them said.
They held Toure hostage for over 15 minutes in front of the hotel as they tried to ensure that he ‘dropped something for the boys’. They had a field day doing this, as they dragged the Manchester City star from one end of the hotel to the other, thus bringing to the fore the security arrangement by the organisers for the event.
A mobile policeman, who stood close-by and should have helped in rescuing Toure said instead, “He (Toure) think say he fit come win for Naija and he no go drop for boys?”
Does any Nigerian player have what it takes to win it again in the nearest future?
Babayaro is optimistic of the country’s chances in the next edition.
He said, “I am looking forward to the 2014 edition and hoping that a player like Vincent Enyeama wins it. He has been outstanding; he was named Europe’s best keeper at a point this season. I think that is what gives you a better chance of winning. It hurts, but in my opinion, the right person won it for 2013.”
The 2013 edition of the Glo-CAF Awards is one most Nigerians would like to forget in a hurry but they are anxiously waiting to see a Nigerian win it again sooner than later.
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