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ASISAT OSHOALA: CAF DISENFRANCHISED ME, SAYS AHMED YUSUF

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA.

Chairman of the Nigeria Football Federation Technical Committee, Ahmed Yusuf who is better known as Fresh, has explained why the columns by his name on the voting results released by CAF was blank.

In essence, he did not vote for any of the candidate that competed for the African Women Footballer of the year Award, which Nigeria’s Asisat Oshoala won.

In a telephone chat with the Sports Village Square, he revealed that he was not contacted and did not get any nomination form, even by e-mail.

He remarked that on December 1, 2019, he got a telephone call from the Media Department of the Nigeria Football Federation reminding him of the deadline of the voting.

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According to him, till 12 midnight of the day, no mail came to him from CAF regarding the voting.

He told the Sports Village Square that CAF apparently did not include him on the list of qualified voters.

Further, Ahmed Yusuf said 10 days later, he curiously got a usual mail from the CAF Technical and Development Committee of which he is member, calling for a meeting to review 2019 events and preview that of 2020.

He said he used the opportunity to enquire why no mail was sent to him regarding voting process for the 2019 CAF Awards. According to him, he was told that CAF did not capture his name.

Yusuf and two others; Abdel Hakim Ibrahim El Shelmani of Libya and Pierre Alain Mounguengui of Gabon were apparently the sideline ones.

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A third possible voter, Jean Michel Benezet of France had zero votes recorded against his name, possibly indicating he got the voting forms but did not vote.

Yusuf explained that he would not have done anything that will go against the interest of Nigerian football and footballers as he believes that his being in CAF was to also project the country.

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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