Monrovia – Liberia’s votes in the 2019 Fifa Men’s Player of the Year Award were not reflected following the release of the voting breakdown by the world governing body of football.
But former Liberia national team head coach, Thomas Kojo, said that he had voted Liverpool’s defender Virgil Van Dijk and Jurgen Klopp in the Fifa Men’s Player of the Year Award and Best Coach, respectively.
Each nation has three voters, the national team head coach, the captain and a media representative, who each select their top three players in the world.
Kojo, who was dismissed by the Liberia Football Association (LFA) after he failed his mandate to qualify the Lone Star to the African Nations Championship finals, told FrontPageAfrica that his top three players were Liverpool’s defender van Dijk, Barcelona’s forward Lionel Messi and Juventus’ forward Cristiano Ronaldo.
“I went to the LFA and in the Technical Director’s (Henry Brown’s) office, we filled in the form on line and sent it.
“I voted for the Liverpool’s defender van Dijk as my first option, second Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo third.
“And in the Best Coach award, I voted for Liverpool’s coach Jurgen Klopp,” Kojo disclosed.
However, FrontPageAfrica has gathered from source within the LFA that the Football house is raising contention with Fifa on why Liberia’s votes were not reflected on Fifa’s voting breakdown.
Source further explained that Lone Star’s captain, William Jebor, did not vote as he was out of the country.
Jebor has not confirmed his involvement in the Fifa Men’s award voting process yet.
However, FrontPageAfrica has gathered from source within the LFA that the Football house is raising contention with Fifa on why Liberia’s vote was not reflected on the voting breakdown.
The source added that the LFA could send a communication to Fifa in the short possible time to ascertain why the national team’s coach vote was not indicated in the process.
Fifa Men’s Award Voting Controversy
This year’s edition of the Fifa Men’s Award voting process, which was supervised and monitored by an independent observer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland, was marked by controversy.
Liverpool’s forward Mohammed Salah was furious with the Egyptian FA for not voting him and the forward, who finished third in 2018, removed “Egypt” from his Twitter profile, which reads: “Footballer for Liverpool FC.”
However, he sent out another tweet, which translates as “Whatever they do to try to change my love for Egypt, they will not succeed.”
The Mo Salah action prompted the Egyptian Football Association to confirm that acting coach, Shawky Gharib and captain Ahmed Elmonhamady voted for their countryman, Salah.
But Fifa notified that EFA that, “the signature on the voting forms were in capital letter and thus seemed not valid.”
Football’s world governing body further said the forms also lacked a mandatory signature by the EFA general secretary.
Egypt was not the only country affected by the voting process, as the Sudanese Football Federation said that its published votes did not match the votes it cast.
Fifa has said, they have “checked the voting documents submitted by the Sudanese FA and all documents are signed and confirmed with the official stamped of the SFA.”
The captain of the Nicaragua, Juan Barrera, too, questions the authenticity of his country’s votes in the awards as the player admitted that he did not submit any votes.
Fifa’s records show that Barrera voted for Lionel Messi as the best player and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp as the best Manager.
