Nigeria: When Will Strikers Domination of Footballer of the Year Award End?

By Dil

analysis

Of late, the annual Footballer of the Year Award across the globe has become the exclusivity of strikers with midfielders, defenders and even goalkeepers literarily shot out. In this piece, Group Sports Editor, Peter Edema, examines the rationale behind this trend and why it has become the norm rather than the exception.

The expectations that former Super Eagles’ captain and midfield maverick, Austin Jay-Jay Okocha, would be named 2003 African Footballer of the Year were high. Such expectations were not misplaced because Okocha had become an enigma of sort with his dribbling runs. He had warmed himself into the minds of many Nigerian football fans that when Cameroonian, Samuel Eto’o Fills, was announced the winner; there was an uproar. The dissapointment was understandable because to the average Nigeria, Okocha was good for the award, having been named by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as its African player of the year.

Unfortunately, that was the last time Okocha got nominated for the most prestigious football award on the continent and never won it before he hung his boots in 2008.

Like Nigerian player, Black Stars captain and Chelsea midfielder, Michael Essien, is also going through something similar as he failed to win the award; which he has been making the list since 2005. Twice, he ended up as runners up; while in the last edition that was held in his country, he placed third. He is not alone in this, players such as Yaya Toure of Cote d’Ivoire, Mohammed Aboutrika of Egypt, Seydou Keita of Mali among others, even with their skills, may not win it perhaps because they are not strikers.

The only times when non-strikers won the award were in 1986 and 1982 and on those occasions Thomas Nkono (Cameroon) and Badou Zaki of Morocco won it after putting up strong performances at the World Cup editions of 1986 and 1982 accordingly. Since the Confederation of African Football (CAF) took charge of organising the award in 1993 from France Football magazine it has been dominated by strikers.

A look at the winners of the African Footballer of the Year Award since 1993, when the present system came into being shows that only strikers are adjudged most valuable footballers on the continent.

But the trend of bestowing the player of the award on strikers is not a trend peculiar to Africa alone. In the FIFA version of the same award, which started in 1991, only Fabio Cannavaro has won the award as a defender following his five-star performance at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where Italy emerged world champion for the fourth time. In 1998, French midfielder, Zinedine Zidane, was voted 1998 footballer of the year after his contributions to France’s winning the World Cup as host were invaluable. The European version of the award, the Balon d’Or, has been fair on players outside the striking position with the likes of Zinedine Zidane winning the award thrice.

According to former African Editor of Goal.com, Ibrahim Dabo, “why can’t a midfielder or defender or even a goalkeeper be considered good enough for the award?”

And what really comes to mind is that the voters, the national team coaches and the national team captains, tend to vote only strikers as winners, and one is almost made to believe that the criteria considered in the choice of the winners favour strikers mostly.

Former Super Eagles captain and goalkeeper, Peter Rufai, who never came close to the award in spite of his superb outing at the 1988, 1994 editions of the Africa Cup of Nations and 1994 World Cup, believes that the attitude to the game has changed a lot compared to his playing days when the contribution of every player was taken into consideration including goalkeepers rather than outfield players as it is today.

“I don’t think it has been a matter of goalkeepers or defenders not playing well in recent times. I think those who have been saddled with the responsibility to vote or select players as nominees for the award have zeroed their criteria to goal-scoring alone. There’s no doubt that the art of goal-scoring is more popular nowadays but I must tell you that it takes so much ability, calculation and decisiveness to tackle and get it right. Defending is also an art of the game, which many people fail to acknowledge.

“That is why it has become more difficult for goalkeepers and defenders in the modern game as they call it. But the modern game is not complete without the contributions of the goalkeepers and defenders because they are key components of any team. But nowadays people only talk of the strikers and that’s why the award is centered around strikers in recent years,” Rufai said.

“Looking at football today, a lot of changes have taken place with strikers becoming more prominent than before,” says FIFA and CAF technical committee member, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde.

But Onigbinde denied that there are criteria set down by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) that guides voters on how to vote.

“There are no specific criteria for those voting on the awards,” he said adding, “but people at this level of football understand the contents of football. So they know what look for while voting.”

“You look at the player’s technique, tactical discipline, intellectual fitness and psychological make-up among other things.”

According to Onigbinde, “without being sentimental, we tend to think more of the strikers and not those who create chances that the strikers take advantage of. Though, we must agree that scoring goals require a lot of determination, commitment, speed and discipline on the part of players.

“Football is a team work and the man with the ball is as important as those not with the ball. And that when a goal is scored, we look at those who assisted the goal, the man that gave the pass that resulted in the goal, we need to look at the complete scenario and not the man that scored the goal,’ he said.

“But I ask a question, who is a striker? There are two things in football. It is either you are attacking or defending depending on the position of the ball. For example, when your team is attacking your opponent goal area, everybody on your side will be attacking, while everybody on the opposing team becomes defenders, because your primary goal at that time is preventing the ball from your goal area.

“Also as an attacker, if I take the ball to my opponent six yard box, and the opposing goalkeeper dispossesses me of the ball, I will try as much as possible to deny the goalkeeper from initiating an attack against my team, at that point I am defending,” he said.

As a result of his stance, Oigbinde said that at several international fora, he has argued against the idea of looking at strikers alone as the most important in a team, saying, “football is a team work and has become as a work of an art. No matter how good a player is, he must play together with others for the team to win.”

Even former Nigeria Football Association (NFA) chairman, who is also a CAF committee member, Brig. Gen Dominic Oneya (rtd) also, expressed surprise at the strikers’ domination of the Footballer of the Year Award.

He expressed shock penultimate Thursday in Accra, Ghana, shortly after Ivorien Didier Drogba was named the 2009 African Footballer of the Year Award winner.

“I am surprised that Michael Essien did not win the award. I think he should have won it. The problem is that the voters only concern themselves with those that score the goals. A team is not made of strikers alone. There are other equally important departments in a team,” he said.

CAF committee member, Mr. Paul Bassey, denied the existence of certain criteria that favours strikers.

“All over the world, it is strikers that win most of the awards because they are the ones who score the goals. For example in the Champions League match between Chelsea and Inter Milan at Stamford Bridge, the only thing people remember is Samuel Eto’o goal. So also with Manchester united. Today the most popular Man U player is Wayne Rooney because he scores most of the goals. So also is Cristiano Ronaldo when he was in Man U,” he said.

“There was a time in CAF when only two committees vote for the awards. But then people complained and the process has now been expanded. Today after shortlisting the players, CAF gives the list to the national teams’ coaches through their national federations for them to vote. And what CAF only ask the coaches is which player impresses them the most and gives reasons. As you know, you can easily defend a striker, it is always not easy defending a defender,” he added.

While justifying his position, he added “it is only strikers that get the money. No defender makes the kind of money the strikers are making now.”

CAF Media Committee member, Aisha Falode, is of the view that striker dominate the award because football is about goals and strikers score these goals.

“We celebrate football because of goals and this is number one criteria. There is also the consideration of the players assists his contribution, how he comports himself on and off the field and how the player assist his national federation in developing the game,” she said.

“But the number one consideration is goals, it is when there are no much goals that other considerations come into play,” she added.

Nigeria: When Will Strikers Domination of Footballer of the Year Award End?