Sudan coach claims his FIFA Best Player vote was changed

by Staff Reporter

Thursday Sep 26, 2019. 13:00

Sudan coach Zdravko Logarušić has made the astonishing claim that someone had tampered with his vote for the FIFA Best Player Award.

It comes after the Egypt Football Association (EFA) wrote to FIFA to ask why the votes of Olympic coach Shawky Ghareeb and captain Ahmed Elmohamady, and leaves the world governing body with potentially some explaining to do.

Logarušić says he voted for Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and then Kyllian Mbappe, but somehow had eventual winner Lionel Messi registered as his top pick.

“In my vote, I picked Mohamed Salah in first place, Sadio Mane in the second, and Kylian Mbappe in third,” Logarušić told Al-Arabiya.

“I took a photo of the voting application after I signed it with the Sudan Football Association and I don’t know what happened afterwards.”

It is possible that someone at the Sudanese association tampered with the vote, or that there was a genuine mistake, but it has left Logarušić bemused and provides more controversy in an already contentious result.

Messi was named Best Player, followed by the Liverpool duo of defender Virgil van Dijk and forward Sadio Mane.

The EFA say they submitted their votes on August 15, which were acknowledged by FIFA, but then did not appear on the results list.