Journalist Dave Jones ignored Lionel Messi's claims for Uefa's Best Player in Europe award to steal publicity for Welsh football
Call him the Welsh David Ginola. Because he's worth it. Sort of.
In much the same way that the man who liked to be known as Le Magnifique was declared the Premier League's Player of the Year in 1999 because the votes of most of the electorate were shared evenly across various members of Manchester United's treble-winning squad, quirkily leaving the Spurs man with the highest individual tally, the domination of Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and Cristiano Ronaldo in the election for this season's Best Player in Europe award has enabled the Bangor City striker Les Davies to make it on to Uefa's 32-man long list by dint of receiving one first preference vote.
A journalist from each of the 53 Uefa member countries is allowed to nominate five players for the award first won by Stanley Matthews in 1956, with the journalist's first preference being awarded five points, second preference getting four points and so forth.
In the light of the nomination of Davies it would be easy to deride this voting system – or the system for choosing the journalists who do the voting – but instead let us hail Dave Jones of the Welsh Daily Post for deciding to use an otherwise vacuous accolade to nick some publicity for the Welsh Premier League and the unheralded players who toil therein.
This, surely, was a noble attempt to harness some of the glow from the sport's glamour boys to help grow the grassroots, or perhaps it was just a zeitgeisty attempt to emulate all those internet conspirators who amuse themselves by hijacking online surveys to nominate Bullet for My Valentine to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest or put Peppa Pig in the running for Time Magazine's Person of the Year.
"Les is an outstanding striker whose reputation has rocketed in the last couple of seasons," explained Jones of the 27-year-old part-time forward who now has a shot of collecting a gong previously lifted by Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane. "Every time he plays for Bangor City in Europe he makes life hell for all defenders."
And, indeed, Davies did give the Zimbru Chisinau defenders what for during this month's Europa League preliminary round tie, and even came close to scoring before the Moldovans eventually progressed 2-1 on aggregate thanks to a brace from Oleg Molla, who is curiously absent from the Ballon d'Or roll of honour.
As, indeed, is Rhys Griffiths, who has been top scorer in the Welsh Premier League for the last seven seasons.
There's your scandal right there. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
