TheCable

BY BABA GRUMPY

Thank God there are two African Footballer of the Year awards. Hopefully somebody more deserving than Mohamed Salah will win the other one as Victor Moses has been robbed of the BBC version. 

In case you are unaware, Liverpool forward, Mohamed Salah has won the BBC African Footballer of the Year Award defeating Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Gabon, Guinean Naby Keita, Sadio Mane of Senegal and Nigeria’s Victor Moses. I imagine the voting finished in that order. 

All five are no doubt talented footballers and well deserving of their place in the shortlist. However the only one who achieved something at club and country level is Victor Moses and it appears he finished bottom of the voting order. 

Young Victor didn’t win the Premier League as a squad member; he did it as an intrinsic member of the team. Chelsea’s triumph in the popularly acclaimed most difficult league in the world was down to that time when Antonio Conte rejigged his starting 11 and brought Victor Moses amongst others into the team. Victor was Man of the Match for a few Chelsea matches in that impressive run to guarantee Chelsea the title and he scored a fair few match winning goals as well. 

Not only did Victor Moses win the Premier League with Chelsea, he was instrumental to helping Nigeria qualify for Russia 2018 just like Mohamed Salah helped his country. 

How a chap who has come to the limelight in England for only 4 months of the year suddenly wins the BBC African Footballer of the Year award (no doubt because of the vote of Liverpool fans) is beyond me. It is the African Footballer of THE YEAR award not the African Footballer of the last quarter of the year award. 

It is a shame Victor Moses’ club Chelsea are a small club otherwise, their fan base could have matched the Liverpool one in voting massively for Victor. 

Hopefully sense prevails in the CAF version of the award and somebody more deserving than a fella who has achieved 2nd place doesn’t win it in place of someone who actually won something and matched every other achievement of the other fella.

Baba Grumpy works in financial services in the United Kingdom. He blogs mostly about football at http://babagrumpy.blogspot.co.uk. His Twitter handle is @BabaGrumpy