Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré says that it is about time that the FIFA Ballon d’Or award started recognising more African players.
The award was created by unifying the FIFA world Player of the Year award with the famous French magazine. Since then, only European-based players have been winning the award. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the two that have dominated the list since 2008, but Touré reckons that there have also been many good players. Touré was recently named in the 23 man shortlist for the upcoming awards ceremony that will held in a couple of months.
However, this award is once again likely to be won either by Ronaldo or Lionel Messi for their immense contributions with Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively. Other teams have also won major trophies, but these two have predominantly scored more goals than others. Touré reckons that other contributions also need to be taken into account when giving the awards. He has also called for more focus on African players, who have become more pronounced the major European leagues over the past decade. Touré himself is regarded as one of the finest players in the world, but he has never won such top accolades.
The 32-year-old came 12th in the rankings a few years ago."To be honest, I think that some Africans deserve more light and, why not, to feature in this list.I know it's hard to find successors to Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o, who set the bar very, very high.But we should definitely pay more attention to Africans in these circumstances.I admit it's quite frustrating.I could have shouted my frustration from the rooftops a bit like Eto'o did previously.But it's not my style of working – I don't want to victimise myself," said Touré about his frustration.
