FIFA vote-rigging : Three countries claim they didn’t vote for Messi

The Egyptian football association, Sudan’s coach Zdravko Logarusic and Nicaragua’s captain Juan Barrera have raised concerns over the authenticity of the ballots – citing uncounted or misallocated votes.

The above institutions have all questioned legitimacy of the just ended FIFA Best awards.

The Egyptian Football Federation claim they officially sent Egypt’s vote to FIFA on August 15, four days before the deadline.

Their statement ‘asks FIFA why the Egyptian vote was not accepted’ and goes on to confirm the EFA have opened an ‘investigation’ into the circumstances of this failure.

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Additioanlly, Sudan’s coach Lugarisic and Nicaragua’s Juan Barrera took to social media to indicate that the votes published by FIFA, in their names, did not reflect their actual choices.

Lugarisic says his first choice was Egypt’s Mohamed Salah but FIFA’s voting document showed Messi as his first selection.

Barrera is also adamant that he did not vote for Messi, as claimed by FIFA. ‘“ did not vote for Messi. I was surprised to be on the list of captains who voted for Messi and there is no explanation how it appeared there,” Barrera is reported to have said.

This allegations have now thrown into serious doubt the legitimacy of Messi’s honour.

Meanwhile, FIFA have denied allegations of foul play over Lionel Messi The Best award win.

“We have checked the voting documents submitted by the Nicaraguan FA and all documents are signed and confirmed with the official stamp of the Nicaraguan FA.

“Having compared with the vote sheets submitted by the federation and the ones we have published on FIFA.com, we confirm that we have the right votes signed by the player. We are asking the Nicaraguan Football Federations to inquire on this matter,” a source at FIFA said.

Messi walked away with the best men’s player accolade at the glitzy ceremony in Milan on Monday, September 23 pipping Cristiano Ronaldo and Virgil van Dijk to the award.

NB: Excerpts of this article curled from Daily Mail.