Sportsverifier - CAF Awards 2024, Ademola Lookman and the one things amiss!

On the 16th of December 2024, many sports lovers especially football fans and enthusiasts gathered at Marrakesh, Morocco to put names on a long standing yearly award ceremony.

The ceremony was put together by Confederation of African Football, CAF and was graciously attended by football heavy weights, former and active football players that also included CAF and FIFA presidents, Dr Patrice Motsepe and Gianni Infantino.

It was an entertaining event. The highlight of the event was the individuals awards with the most anticipated one, the Best player award deservedly won by Ademola Lookman. The Atalanta Winger/forward has had a stellar performance all through the year. Including his beastly performance at the Europa League finals that saw him creating and breaking records with a hattrick of spectacular goals.

I believe everyone knew he was that African who had the most standout performance throughout the year and there was no doubt about it. No disrespect of course to the other nominees who competed in the category with him.

I however have a reservation about these awards and why there also seems to be discrepancies in related categories and nominations. The most prominent for me was the Men's Goalkeeper of the year award. It was won by the South African shot stopper Ronwen Williams who plays for Mamelodi Sundowns in the South African premier league. Why I was encouraged that a player who plays for a club in Africa could be voted as the best out of Africa, I was disappointed that when the CAF FIFPRO Africa Men's XI was announced, he was not the named keeper. Onana was found inbetween the sticks and it gives me some chills of unsolved puzzles. Why?

If Ronwen is the African best goalkeeper, doesn't that make him the one to take the first line in best XI from the region. If the voters in these categories were different as some would have me believe, what data or materials were made available to (the voters) guide them in the voting process.

It is just a twist that seem inappropriate to me. In all, the players awarded deserved their wins.

The CAF 2024 award winners are listed below;

Men's Player of the Year: Ademola Lookman (Atalanta/Nigeria)

Women's Player of the Year: Barbra Banda (Orlando Pride/Zambia)

Men's Goalkeeper of the Year: Ronwen Williams (Mamelodi Sundowns/South Africa)

Women's Goalkeeper of the Year: Chiamaka Nnadozie (Paris FC/Nigeria)

Men's Interclub Player of the Year: Ronwen Williams (Mamelodi Sundowns/South Africa)

Women's Interclub Player of the Year: Sanaa Mssoudy (AS FAR/Morocco)

Men's Young Player of the Year: Lamine Camara (AS Monaco/Senegal)

Women's Young Player of the Year: Doha El Madani (AS FAR/Morocco)

Men's Coach of the Year: Emerse Fae (Cote d’Ivoire)

Women's Coach of the Year: Lamia Boumehdi (TP Mazembe)

Men's National Team of the Year: Cote d’Ivoire

Women's National Team of the Year: Nigeria

Men's Club of the Year: Al Ahly (Egypt)

Women's Club of the Year: TP Mazembe (DR Congo)

Men’s Referee of the Year: Mutaz Ibrahim (Libya)

Women’s Referee of the Year: Bouchra Karboubi (Morocco)

Men’s Assistant Referee of the Year: Elvis Guy Noupue Nguegoue (Cameroon)

Women’s Assistant Referee of the Year: Diana Chikotesha (Zambia)

Goal of the Year: Mabululu (Angola)

Club World Cup Draws and FIFA's 2025 Agenda?

Many people are curious to know why FIFA in all its wisdom is seeking to expand the Club World Cup at a time when there has been agitations from clubs and players alike for a reduced fixtures in the playing calendar. This is to allow players recuperate, have enough time for leisure and family. This call seems not to resonate with the sports world governing body.

FIFA CLUB WORLD CUP 2025 TROPHY

From all that we as soccer fans have gathered, it was expanded to be an all inclusive competition, becoming more competitive and rewarding for both club and the game in itself. This is a valid reason of course. We are hoping that the club and players are able to manage this situation to not affect the participants, players mainly negatively.

As fans and football enthusiasts, we want an unending entertainment as long as those that are meant to entertain us are happy while at it. So the expanded edition has been slated to hold between Sunday 15th June 2025 to 13th July 2025 for twenty nine days. The event promises to be engaging and entertaining with the likes of football world greats and superstars Messi, Neymar and Mbappe making appearance.

CWC TROPHY UNVEILING

A total of thirty two teams have been drawn to a group of eight with four teams in each group to play three match group games. The FIFA Club World Cup games draw was done yesterday, 6th December 2024 with Infantino revealing the new look of the tourney's trophy.

FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Draw and Grouping is listed below

Group A

Palmeiras

FC Porto

Al Ahly

Inter Miami

Group B

Paris St-Germain

Atletico Madrid

Botafogo

Seattle Sounders

Group C

Bayern Munich

Auckland City

Boca Juniors

Benfica

Group D

Flamengo

Esperance Sportive de Tunisie

Chelsea

Club Leon

Group E

River Plate

Urawa Red Diamonds

Monterrey

Inter Milan

Group F

Fluminense

Borussia Dortmund

Ulsan

Memelodi Sundowns

Group H

Manchester City

Wydad

Al Ain

Juventus

Group H

Real Madrid

Al Hilal

Pachuca

Salzburg

I will be posting fixtures for the tournament in my subsequent posts where I will be talking about my favourites from each group and my thoughts on possible winners at the tournament.

Should Sports Athletes be Paid in Crypto as Bitcoin Surges above $100k mark?

The Cryptocurrency market has seen a considerable amount of positive growth in the last one month following former American President Donald Trump victory at the November polls returning him to the white house.

Following this positive trend, the least of worries for bitcoin traders is not the current surge but stability in the market considering other market forces in the USA and world over when Donald Trump takes office in January. Since the November elections, the cryptocurrency market especially Bitcoin has seen about 33% rise in prices.

This has boosted confidence in investors to throw in a 'little bit more' into the market as future growth is expected.

For the broader conversation on payments and exchanges using cryptocurrency for individuals and corporations, I will look back to a market research that was done some two years ago. The publication was issued in regards to a number of athletes that agreed with their various employers to have their wages paid in crypto. About seven of them were listed and if they continued to receive their wages via crypto till now is what we don't know.

The seven listed athletes are, Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors, Andre Iguodala also of Golden State Warriors, Odell Bekham Jnr of Los Angeles Rams, Shohei Ohtani of Los Angeles Angels, Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay Packers, Cade Cunningham of Detroit Pistons and Trevor Lawrence Jacksonville Jaguars. It is worthy of note that these agreements between players and teams were done in 2021. And in 2022, just a year after, the crypto market saw a sharp decline in most cases of between -9.0% to a whooping -32.0%. But this situation has changed with the present circumstances that  has seen Bitcoin on a steady rise.

But from recent crypto outlook, there seem to be hope and prospects. The world therefore should look into encouraging investment and wider use of the crypto space. In sports where monetary exchange comes in large sums, the use of crypto will help facilitate and cut burdens of charges on individuals and corporations.

I will suggest this method of payment for players in the sporting world. For two reasons, Price growth and Easy accessibility and Use. This is because crypto is now recognised in almost every country of the world with even El Salvador having Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Amount deposited in a crypto account is automatically seen as an investment and would grow without even any input. The market simply adjusts with time, responding to certain indices.

I wish and hope more countries will adopt it as a legal tender with more sportsmen and women also accepting payment with same.

December Rush: The Premier League Dilemma

On the heels of a new year comes December. December is a month that premier league stakeholders - players, club managers as well as owners fidgets. It is a month that puts great pressure on players to deliver results in the midst of packed schedule.

The premier league clubs and players have over the years complained about these fixtures and the premier league authority seem not to be bothered. Some clubs like Chelsea FC have as many as nine games to execute within the month. Tottenham has nine, Manchester United has eight. Fulham has a reduced match as they are to execute seven matches in December, Liverpool has nine and City have eight fixtures for December. The teams that have appearance at European club competitions have more matches to execute.

The issues arising from these compacted match fixtures is the most likelihood of injuries among players. Some clubs already have a long list of injured first team players and are already trying to cover up these absentees with second team players. While some are succeeding with these introductions, others have not been able to maximise the players that are currently serving as replacement for these injured players.

So in a month as December, where the title's would-be champion and closest contenders are known is not a period where injuries should be allowed. Any weakness or absentees in the opposing team will always be felt and might even be exploited by other teams. This does not sound fair as these occurrences are not envisioned but could have been curtailed if the Premier league board resolves to spread these games a bit more or in the alternative, the league could be made to start a bit earlier than the normal August ending.

The above measures, I believe if implemented could reduce the December match rush and also reduce these incidents of  injuries among players that could be detrimental to teams performance.

It is 2024 December and what we await is a sweet football entertainment, no injuries.

The Premier league table after match day 13 that saw Liverpool thumping over champions Manchester City in a 2 - 0 win over the weekend saw the winning team in a good nine point gap. Arsenal and Chelsea are at second and third positions with twenty five points each.

The table is shown below,

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