Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams has been nominated for another prestigious award after being shortlisted for FIFA The Best Award.
Williams, who also received the nod for the Ballon d’Or, is nominated in the Best Goalkeeper category and he is up against Emiliano Martinez of Aston Villa and Argentina, who beat him to the Yashine Trophy, Ederson (Manchester City/Brazil) and Giorgi Mamardashvili (Valencia/Georgia).
Others are; Andriy Lunin (Real Madrid/Ukraine), include Yassine Bounou (Al Hilal/Morocco), Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy), David Raya (Arsenal/Soain), Unai Simón (Athletic Bilbao/Spain) and Yann Sommer (Inter).
It is almost the same names that Williams was up against for the Yashine Trophy where he finished ninth but he will be hoping for a change in fortunes this time.
Fans must be registered on FIFA to vote
South Africans can help him with that as the fan vote will have an impact on the final outcome that will determine the winner.
The winners of The Best FIFA Men’s Player, The Best FIFA Men’s Coach and The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper Awards will be selected by an international jury comprising the current coaches of all men’s national teams (one per team), the current captains of all men’s national teams (one per team), one specialist journalist from each territory represented by a national team and fans from all over the world registered on FIFA.com.
It is this last part where South Africans, and indeed African, fans come in but they have to be registered on FIFA.com to vote.
Once registered, they need to log onto: https://www.fifa.com/en/the-best-fifa-football-awards/2024/mens-11 to cast their vote.
What do the voting rules say?
It is important to remember that just like the Ballon d’Or vote, the fan vote is not the final decision maker as each of the four groups of voters within the jury has the same electoral weight irrespective of the actual number of voters in those groups (the votes of the coaches, the captains, the specialist journalists and the fans shall each make up one quarter of the poll, notwithstanding the number of voters in each group).
“The coaches,’ captains’ and journalists’ individual votes shall be published on FIFA.com. For the avoidance of doubt: a) Captains of national teams may vote for coaches from the national team they represent. b) Captains and coaches of national teams may vote for players from the national team they represent,” says a statement from FIFA over the voting criteria.
“c) Nominated captains and coaches are not permitted to vote for themselves. d) Specialist journalists may vote for players, coaches and goalkeepers who are from their own country or who represent clubs affiliated to their own country.
“e) Fans registered on FIFA.com may vote for any men’s and women’s football players, coaches and goalkeepers, provided that any such vote is cast fairly and in accordance with these Rules of Allocation.”
