Ronaldinho wins 2009 Golden Foot prize
by Anthony Smith (staff)/Agency | Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
MONACO - OCTOBER 12: Ronaldinho with the Golden Foot Awards 2009 at Monte Carlo on October 12, 2009 in Monaco, Monaco. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
AC Milan’s Brazilian forward Ronaldo de Assís Moreira, or ‘Ronaldinho’ is the winner of the Golden Foot 2009, the international career award dedicated to the greatest champions of world football.
The vote was an epic battle between the Brazil ace, Raúl González Blanco, Thierry Henry and Gianluigi Buffon. But the fans gave the AC Milan star 43,755 votes against the 31,762 for Raúl and 25,537 for Henry. Local legend and captain of AS Roma, Francesco Totti was also among the nominees but failed to win enough votes to influence the final standings.
The total votes collected on the website www.goldenfoot.com were 158,470, coming mainly from Brazil, Turkey, USA, China, Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Hungary, Greece and Germany.
Ronaldinho succeeds in the roll of honour to another Brazilian, Roberto Carlos, who won the award in 2008. Ronaldinho (World Champion with Brazil in 2002 and winner with FC Barcelona of the 2006 Champions League title, two La Liga championships, twice in a row FIFA World Player of the Year and once ‘Ballon d’Or’ winner) received the Golden Foot from H.S.H. the Prince Albert of Monaco, who gave his High Patronage to the event.
Five other players of yesteryear were made ‘all time’ legends: awarded Zbigniew Boniek (Poland), Oleg Blokhin (Ukraine), René Higuita (Colombia), Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Germany) and Nilton Santos (Portugal), who couldn’t receive the award and was represented by Botafogo FR deputy chairman, José Luiz Rolim.
The ‘Golden Foot’ is an international career award that benefits from the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. It is awarded to football players who are at least 29 years old, who stand out for their sporting achievements (both as individual players and with their teams), for their fair play, their personality and for the esteem of the public and football experts. The winner is chosen from ten nominees selected by a jury consisting of Golden Foot media partners representatives and fans from all over the world who give their preferential vote via the official site www.goldenfoot.com. The winner gets to leave a permanent cast of his footprints on ‘The Champions’ Promenade’, the ‘Walk of Fame’ of international football on the seafront of the Principality of Monaco, beside other great footballing legends. In 2003 the first winner was Roberto Baggio, in 2004 Pavel Nedved, in 2005 Andriy Shevchenko, in 2006 Ronaldo, in 2007 Alessandro Del Piero and in 2008 Roberto Carlos. The Golden Foot prize is produced by Ciaudano Jewellers.
October 19th, 2009 at 13:37
Hi to all. Congrats to Dinho, i must confess that he merrits the awards. I can’t do without mentioning his marvelous contribution to his country Brazil and to his club site barcelona by then. I cannot also do without mentioning his tactical,digital and interelational communication with the football and the pitch of play. He and sammy Eto’o made Barca a place to be.
Congrats Dihno.
By Anthony bah kenfoh.