Ballon d’Or: Nigerian representative voted Argentine superstar over Victor Osimhen

Super Eagles striker, Victor Osimhen, was ignored by the Nigerian representative in the Ballon d’Or voting process, Soccernet.ng reports.

The 24-year-old Napoli striker was nominated for one of football’s biggest individual awards after helping Napoli to a league title win for the first time in over thirty years.

The Nigerian scored twenty-six league goals and set up another four for his teammates in the league, helping himself to the Serie A Golden Boot award, and also helping his team to a quarter-final place in last season’s UEFA Champions League competition.

Former Barcelona and Paris Saint-German player, Leo Messi, won the award for the eighth time in his career, after a season that saw him win the French Ligue 1, and the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina.

Erling Haaland was a close second, after scoring the most goals in Europe last term and winning a treble with Pep Guardiola’s incredible Manchester City side.

Osimhen was ranked 8th, becoming the first-ever Nigerian to be included in the top ten footballers in the world, breaking Nwankwo Kanu’s record, where he was in 11th position, twenty-six years ago.

The winner of the award is usually decided by votes from media representatives from the top hundred countries from the FIFA men’s world ranking, with each nation barring a representative.

In the results released by Fabrizio Romano, the Nigerian representative opted to vote for Lionel Messi, rather than his countryman, Victor Osimhen.

Messi amassed most of the votes, ending up with 462 points, with Erling Haaland coming in second place, a hundred and five points behind arguably, the greatest footballer the planet has ever seen.

On the continent, Osimhen has been nominated for the CAF Footballer of the Year award, and the eventual winner will be awarded on the 11th of December, 2023 in Marrakech, Morrocco.