Should This Man Have Won the Ballon d’Or Instead of Cristiano Ronaldo?

By: Daryl | December 2nd, 2008

Nope, it’s not Leo Messi or Fernando Torres. It’s Mohamed Aboutrika, the Al-Ahly and Egypt playmaker. In an excellent article on the Guardian’s sports blog yesterday, Paul Doyle suggests Aboutrika is a more worthy winner.

Here’s why: Aboutrika has not only matched C-Ron’s achievement of winning the Egyptian league and the African Champions League with Al-Ahly, but he also won the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt, scoring the winner in the final. I don’t remember C-Ron doing that at Euro 2008.

Some YouTubers even consider Aboutrika to be better than Superman:

Personally, I see C-Ron as a deserving Ballon d’Or winner. Predictable though it was, C-Ron’s unstoppable 2007-8 Premier League form alone was enough to win the award.

But more worrying is the fact that Aboutrika didn’t even make the 30 man Ballon d’Or shortlist, and didn’t make FIFA’s World Player of the Year shortlist either.

In fact, no one playing their club football outside Europe made either shortlist.

So, is it time the Ballon d”or and FIFA shortlists started recognizing the achievements of players outside of the big European leagues?

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Category: World Football

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Shazback

Omar : UEFA has 53 nations (including 16 nations from FIFA's top 20 and 13 from the ELO's top 20) competing for 13 places, whilst the CAF has 55 nations (including 5 from FIFA's top 30 and 2 from ELO's top 30) competing for 5 places. So whilst UEFA has more berths, it's because the teams in UEFA are better. When the CAF has a team that is in the top 3 in a world cup and doesn't even qualify for the next world cup (Turkey 2002, non-qualified for 2006), then the CAF will have a serious argument to increase its berths. Until then, we'll just have to stick with the fact that since 1970 two of the podium spots have always been occupied by a UEFA country, whilst no CAF country has reached the podium (or even the last four, something the AFC has achieved with only 4 berths, albeit on home soil, so perhaps South Africa 2010 will at last get a CAF side on the top of the pile).
Ebrahim

I can't believe the EUROPEAN footballer of the year award should consider players from outside of Europe
el fanatico

He is really good player, no doubt about it, I hope he goes to Real madrid, in the january transfer window, we could use him. And then he could win the "Ballon de oro".
Bra

omar, that's because European countries are better at football, generally. It's not proportional to the number of teams (why not cry about Asia, then?), it's about balancing quality of play with regional weighing.

Overall, I think a good job is done on the World Cup berths.
Ak

Well done guys, 'way to piss on a parade...
omar

shaz: mayeb u wud think about the fact tht UEFA countries have like 10 x (ok exaggeration)the chance of getting in the world cup than any african team just becuz there are less nations competing for more spots than african nations...
Shazback

Maybe Aboutrika deserves it, but I must not be alone in thinking that winning the CAF Champions' League is much less of a feat than winning the UEFA Champions' League, just as winning the CAF African Cup of Nations is less of a feat than winning the UEFA European Football Championship.

In the past three Club world Cup (a competition that is taken far more seriously in the CAF, OFC, CONCACAF and AFC than UEFA or COMNEBOL), twice the AFC champions' League winners have finished higher than the CAF champions' League winners, and once the CAF champions' League winners (Al-Ahly, 2005) even finished last... If Aboutrika had won the Libertadores and the Brazilian/Argentine league, he would have a far stronger case in my eyes. But the Egyptian league and the CAF Champions' League aren't exactly what I'd consider premier competitions.

The CAF African Cup of Nations is very interesting, but perhaps not as hard to win as the EURO, since if I remember the 2002 and 2006 World Cups properly, 4 and 6 of the last 8 came from the UEFA zone, against only 1 and 0 from CAF... So again it's hard to judge in comparaison. Does Angola have as good a squad as the Netherlands? As Russia? Is Cameroon as good as Spain? Or Germany? The only game Aboutrika played against non-African opposition this year with Egypt was a 2-0 defeat to Argentina, without Messi or Rodriguez. And that was just after winning the CAF African Cup of Nations...
lazar

i saw him play before, hes good. but hes not as good as ronaldo, i dont even think hes even close. hes good when playing in egypt, but would he be the same if he played on some big european club or even a small one?
MoMONEY

ABoutrika is an amazing player... One of the best playmakers I have seen anywhere... Controls the game like no other and I have seen him score countless 90th minutes goals to win championships and games... Immense player. Would easily be a household name if he went to Europe from a younger age...
daryl

Alessio,

Since 2007 the Ballon d'Or has been open to players on teams from anywhere in the world.
Daryl

That video was absolutely terrible, but I do agree that FIFA need to start including names outside of the top European leagues :(
Othello

Maybe because of this:
http://www.emarrakech.info/pho...