Fans, Analysts Slam UEFA For Changing Team Formation To Accommodate Ronaldo
Football fans have slammed UEFA after discovering that the body changed its 4-2-4 formation to squeeze in Cristiano Ronaldo in the last minute after loosing votes to qualify him into the team of the year, as Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante became the sacrificial lamb.
The team of the year formation was a 4-3-3 style, but the new formation was however changed to 4-2-4, sacrificing Kante to accommodate Ronaldo in the new team.
Daily Mail reports that the reason for doing so was due to Ronaldo’s inability to gather votes in the forward category, as he finished behind Lionel Messi, Sadio Mane and Robert Lewandoski.
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According to daily mail: “UEFA chiefs were not impressed and so came up with the formation switch to allocate Juventus’s Ronaldo, dropping a midfielder. The unlucky man is understood to have been Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante.”
The website further quoted an undisclosed source: “This is really not good. It is effectively vote rigging. Such is Ronaldo’s popularity at a senior level within the organisation, alarm bells sounded when he did not make the cut and, as a result, the formation was changed. It makes you wonder what else they get up to.”
The development has questioned the integrity of the body as it favoured a player over another player who should have made the list on merit.
Reacting, a twitter user @LIVERsuperPOOL called the development an act of nepotism, adding that Juventus president Andrea Agnelli who is a UEFA Executive Committee member must have influenced the decision.
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According to him: “Nepotism in Action? … UEFA changed its TOTY formation from 4-3-3 to 4-2-4 specifically to include Ronaldo (fourth among the forwards per voting results) and sacrificed Kante (the third midfielder). Who’s in the UEFA’s Executive Committee? Juventus president Andrea Agnelli.”
Grant Wahl a football illustrator on his twitter account @Grantwahl frowned at the development stating that the body is stained as one of the most beloved midfielders Kante has become a sacrificial lamb.
“N’Golo Kanté, one of the most beloved players in the world game, getting done dirty here.”
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