November 28 – CONCACAF has opened voting for its inaugural confederation awards that will be presented in December 2013. The new awards will honour the top performers from across the confederation in another initiative designed to open up the regional governing body to its membership and football fans across the region.
“We are delighted to introduce the first edition of the annual CONCACAF Awards, which will provide rightful and much-deserved recognition to our region’s best players, coaches and referees in the women’s and men’s games,” said CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb.
The awards are planned to become another new fixture in the CONCACAF calendar. The winners will be announced at the end of the year on www.concacaf.com. “This event promises to become a prominent date on the football calendar for players and fans alike,” said Webb.
The CONCACAF Awards will honor players and achievements in CONCACAF-sanctioned tournaments and competitions involving the Confederation’s national teams at all levels, including mens and womens FIFA World Cup qualifying competitions, in all age categories. Performances in professional club football leagues within the CONCACAF Member Associations, as well as the CONCACAF Champions League are also eligible.
This year’s award categories include Male and Female Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Goalkeeper of the Year, Referee of the Year, and Goal of the Year.
In each class, a semifinal list of 10 nominees has already been selected through voting of Technical Directors from each of CONCACAF’s 41 Member Associations and the CONCACAF Technical Study Group, which analyses tactics and rates performances at all official CONCACAF tournaments.
The categories, nominees and voting procedure can be found at http://www.concacaf.com/2013-concacaf-awards-voting.
The vote is made up of three parts Member Associations’ national team coaches and captains, media and fans (from anywhere in the world) – each section accounts towards a third of the total vote.
“These CONCACAF Awards are built around an inclusionary approach to voting, by reaching out to multiple contributors including our valued fans,” said General Secretary Enrique Sanz.
Final votes in each of the six categories will be tallied by mid-December, with three finalists elected in each category. Winners will be announced by the end of the year, via CONCACAF.com.
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