No less than 12 African nations who participated in picking the 2015 Ballon d’Or winner ignored Argentina and Barcelona’s striker, Lionel Messi.
National team captains, coaches and journalists took part in the voting in all the member nations of FIFA, with Messi emerging the winner Monday night, to land his record fifth Ballon D’Or. Thirty four African nations participated.
The national coach of South Africa completely overlooked Messi and gave the full five votes to Cristiano Ronaldo, three votes to Vidal Arturo and one to Manchester City’s playmaker, Yaya Toure. Burkina Faso coach preferred the German playmaker, Thomas Muller as the best player of the year, but gave Messi three votes, as second best and Ronaldo one vote.
Sudan ignored Messi and supported Ronaldo with five votes, whiles also giving three votes to Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Paris St Germaine and Real Madrid’s James Rodriguez.
Were Togo’s coach to pick world’s best footballer of 2015, neither Messi nor Ronaldo would have had any chance at all, Coach Saintfiet Tom cast five votes for Man City’s Le Bruyne, three votes to Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and a vote for Yaya Toure.
Senegal’s coach,Cisse Aliou also grudgingly cast a vote for Messi, while contrastingly giving five votes to Toure and three to Ronaldo.
Yaya Toure’s national coach however gave Toure, who did not win the African footballer of the Year, a vote. Instead, the Ivory Coast coach, Dussuyer Michel endorsed Messi with five votes and Ronaldo, three votes.
Overall, 22 African coaches backed Messi, with the full five votes, while six of them gave him three votes and another three coaches, one vote.
Among team captains however, 21 of them fully voted for Messi, while six of them gave him three points.
The captain of Sudan voted like his coach, backing Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic and James Rodriguez in that order.
Ronaldo got nine full endorsements from team captains and six from coaches. Neymar got two full votes from Zambia’s coach and captain. He also got the full support of Ghana’s national coach.
For the full picture of Africa’s voting, please click here: FIFA Ballon d’Or: The Votes