Football

Argentina’s Lionel Messi has again won the world best player award. Messi made history last night when he collected the fourth consecutive title of best player in the world. The FIFA Ballon d’Or award took place in Zurich. United States player Abby Wambach claimed her first FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year award at the FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala held at the Zurich Kongresshaus this evening.

Vicente del Bosque, the Spanish national team coach, and Sweden’s new women’s national team coach Pia Sundhage (former USA coach) were the winners of the FIFA World Coach of the Year awards for men’s and women’s football, respectively.

Aged 25, Messi concluded 2012 by scoring over 90 goals. He also finished top scorer in the UEFA Champions League 2011-2012 season with 14 goals. Meanwhile, Vicente del Bosque added the European title to his 2010 FIFA World Cup crown when leading Spain to victory at EURO 2012.

In women’s football, 2012 was the US national team’s year. Sundhage and Wambach led the US to its second Olympic gold medal in London after defeating the Japanese team in the final and thus exacting revenge for the FIFA Women’s World Cup final the previous year, which Japan won for the first time in their history.

These awards were decided after a poll in which the captains and head coaches of the men’s (for the two men’s awards) and women’s (for the two women’s awards) national teams, as well as international media representatives selected by French football magazine France Football, voted for candidates in each of the four categories. Each group’s votes represented one third of the final result.

It was an unforgettable night, with many former and current football stars on stage and on the red carpet. The international audience was entertained with a flavour of Brazil as we look to the FIFA Confederations Cup 2013, as well as by Scottish singer Amy MacDonald.

The FIFA Ballon d’Or was awarded for the third time following the amalgamation of the FIFA World Player of the Year award with the France Football Ballon d’Or in 2010. Lionel Messi won the FIFA Ballon d’Or after polling 41.60% of the votes, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo on 23.68% and Andrés Iniesta on 10.91%.

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Musa Amadu, the General Secretary of the Nigeria Football Association said the inability of the Super Falcons to defend the African Women Championship (AWC) was a major regret of 2012.

Amadu made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

 He described the team’s poor performance at the championship hosted by Equatorial Guinea as an embarrassment to the FA.

 He said the entire team would be overhauled soon following the ``disgrace it brought to the country's football''.

``A rebuilding process has begun. We are going to overhaul the team and we are going to overhaul the technical crew.

``By the first quarter of 2013, we will see the result of the rebuilding process. ``This will enable us put together a good team and expose them to friendly matches before the qualifiers for the Women World Cup in Canada in 2015 begins in earnest,” Amadu said.

The NFA scribe said that the inability of the FA to unite the football family was also part of their regrets for the out gone year.

 ``I would want to say that we have not been able to really unite the football family. The process has begun and it has not been completed.

 ``We still have some groups that are still not moving in the same direction with the FA as far as football development is concerned in Nigeria.

``I will be praying that in the year 2013 onwards, the football family becomes stronger, so that we can have the same objective in this project which is to move Nigeria football forward.”

NAN recalls that Anyim Pius Anyim, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Sports Minister, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, had in 2012 brokered peace on the crisis marring Nigerian football.

Some of the parties involved in the crisis, including the National Association of Nigeria Footballers (NANF), were persuaded to withdraw the court cases.

NAN also recalls that various committees had been set up in the past to make peace in the country's football. One of such committees’ was the Gen. Dominic Oneya’s nine-man committee.

The committee was set up by the former Sports Minister, Yusuf Suleiman, in August 2011, to seek pragmatic ways of solving the incessant recurrence of crisis in Nigeria’s football.

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