Sudan Coach Logarusic Alleges Own Vote For Salah Not Counted In FIFA Best Awards 2019

Sudan national team coach, Zdravko Logarusic, has added his voice to the controversy trailing Monday’s FIFA Player of the Year Award which was won by Barcelona and Argentina midfielder, Lionel Messi alleging that the world football ruling body didn’t include his votes exactly as he voted, Completesports.com reports.

Logarusic, a Croatian, disclosed that he voted for Mohammed Salah, but surprisingly found out later it did come out as he voted. FiFA’s record shows that the Sudan coach voted Messi as his first choice, Virgil van Dijk as second and Sadio Mane in the third place.

“In my vote, I picked Mohamed Salah in first place, Sadio Mane in the second, and Kylian Mbappe in third,” Logarusic told Sudan news outlet, Al-Arabiya.

“I took a photo of the voting application after I signed it with the Sudan Football Association and I don’t know what happened afterwards”.

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi won the Best FIFA Men’s Player award after collecting 46 points.

Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane ended up in fourth and fifth places in the rankings with 26 and 23 points respectively.

After the breakdown of votes was revealed, the results showed that Logarusic voted for Lionel Messi in first place, Virgil van Dijk in second, and Sadio Mane in third place.

Salah had tweeted on his verified twitter handle @Mosalah that he was considering calling time on his national team career after it emerged that Egyptian Football Association reps did not vote for their national team star in the FIFA Awards.

Salah has been having frosty relationship with the Egyptian FA and this was further heightened after Egypt official votes were found not to have been for their star man, Mohammed Salah.

But Egyptian U23 team manager, Shawky Ghareeb and national team captain, Ahmed Elmohamady confirmed they had voted for Salah in the FIFA Best Awards.

Salah’s frustration with his national federation got to a boiling point when FIFA’s list of votes confirmed Egypt’s nominations were not included in the final analysis with an ‘administrative error’ being blamed by Egypt’s National Association officials.

The only vote recorded for Salah from his native country, Egypt, in the FIFA Awards came from Hang Danial, a journalist.

Amr El-Ganainy, Egypt FA President, claimed he had spoken to Salah that what happened was a mistake.

“I talked with Salah and explained to him it was an administrative mistake,” the FA boss said.

Completesports.com reports that on Thursday, FIFA claimed that Egyptian votes at the Awards were ‘voided because they were written in capital letters’.

Salah has been embroiled in an image right dispute with Egyptian FA after he expressed unhappiness at his image featuring prominently on the outside of the national team’s aeroplane without compensation.

By Sab Osuji