Screw-Up in Asian POY Award?

By: Martha | December 9th, 2007

Nashat Akram As Laurie reported a few weeks ago, Saudi Arabia striker Yasser Al Qahtani was recently named the 2007 Asian Player of the Year. (And there was much rejoicing.)

Since 2006, the Asian POY is selected not by journalist or player votes, but rather by a point system: Players are awarded points based on being named MVP of matches throughout the season (those in the World Cup, Asian Cup, Olympic qualifiers, AFC Champions League and UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup are all included, with more weight given to the more important tournaments), the idea being, one assumes, that there’s no room for complaints when numbers are involved. This, of course, is crap, because naming an MVP is entirely subjective, and the duty falls to one man for each match — whoever is playing the role of AFC Match Commissioner. That aside, however, the point system also falters when you forget to give each player the points he’s won. Oops.

According to reports in UAE magazine Super, Iraq midfielder Nashat Akram should have won the award, but fell short because the 30 points he earned for being named MVP of Iraq’s World Cup qualifying match against Pakistan at the end of October were not added to his total before the POY was named. Though point totals aren’t actually released to the public, Super claims that Al Qahtani’s various MVP performances earned him 100 points, to the 80 earned by Akram (before that qualifier) and his Iraq teammate Younis Mahmoud which, if true, means Akram should, indeed, have taken home the trophy.

I’m guessing the AFC isn’t going to correct themselves here — How do you take a POY trophy away from a guy? — and Akram will be left consoling himself with the fact that, maybe, he really should have won. (You know, like Vanessa Redgrave did, when Jack Palance gave Marisa Tomei the best supporting actress award because hers was the name on top of the teleprompter rather than the one in the envelope? It’s just like that.) What also might happen is that they’ll again revise the system of selecting the POY, something which seems to happen every couple years these days anyway.

[Thanks to lemongrasstea for the links.]