Ballon d’Or: Did Nigeria betray Osimhen? See how African countries voted
Victor Osimhen was nominated for the most prestigious individual award in football after his sterling season with Napoli during the 2022/2023 Serie A campaign to help them win their first Scudetto since 1990.
The Nigerian striker scored 26 league goals to also win the Serie A Golden Boot award for himself while leading the Partenopei to a UEFA Champions League quarter-final finish.
During the Ballon d’Or award night at Théâtre du Châtelet in France, the 24-year-old was ranked number eight in the ranking of best players in the world while Messi won the award for a record eight times after helping Argentina and Paris Saint-Germain to win the 2022 World Cup and French league 1 respectively.
With the finish, osimhen became the first-ever Nigeria player to be listed among the top ten football players in the world by the award organisers. The closest a Nigerian has gotten to the Ballon d’Or before now was 11th in 1997 by Kanu Nwankwo.
Erling Haaland of Manchester City got the second position for his outstanding performance with the English side as they won the treble of the champions league, premier league and the FA Cup. Kylian Mbappé was placed third for his work with France at the world Cup and PSG at league 1.
As the 2023 Ballon d’Or award event has come and gone, the votes of all the country representatives have surfaced.
According to a Facebook post by fabrizio Romano on who each country voted, every single member of the representatives of any African nation did not vote for Victor Osimhen.
The voting patterns of the African Representatives are shown below.
Nigeria- Messi
South Africa – Messi
Algeria – Haaland
Benin -Haaland
Cameroon – Mbappe
Ivory Coast – Mbappe
Egypt – Messi
Gabon – Haaland
Ghana – Haaland
Equatorial Guinea – Haaland
Morocco – Messi
Uganda – Messi
Senegal- Haaland
Tunisia – Messi
Zambia – Messi
Cape Verde – Haaland
It was revealed that the representatives from Africa didn’t vote for Victor Osimhen and that Nigeria voted for Lionel Messi rather than him, who is also from Nigeria.
This proves that Osimhen got his votes from representatives not affiliated with the Confederation for African Football.
Media representatives from the top 100 countries in the FIFA men’s world ranking votes to choose the winner of Ballon d’Or award.
The majority of the 2023 votes went to Lionel Messi, who amassed 462 points; Haaland, in second place, got 357 points, 105 points behind the former FC Barcelona player.
Franklin Khalid posted on X (formally known as Twitter) “Such a shame that no African representative voted Victor Osimhen for the Balon d’or. When I mean NONE, I mean including Nigeria”
“According to what the organisers published. Not a single journalists and representatives of African extraction voted Osimhen”
Nigeria :- Messi
South Africa :- 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
He ended his post with “Victor Osimhen was voted by representatives from other continents. Loved from afar.”
In response an X user Bashir Ahmad replied with “I am sure the journalists and representatives vote for who they think is the best player in the given year, not a player from their country or continent. And we even felt that this year’s Ballon d’Or was rigged for Lionel Messi for an apparent selfish reason.”
When asked what he thinks about Nigerian representatives not voting for Osimhen at the Ballon d’Or, Daniel, a football fan commented ” It’s not a sentimental vote. They voted according to who they thought deserves the Ballon d’Or”
“If we’re to tell ourselves the truth, Osimhen doesn’t deserve to be in the top three of anybody’s voting. This is based on merit not sentiment.”
See also : REVEALED: How Messi won Ballon d’Or over Haaland… see who your country voted
