Despite his demise almost a decade ago, Rashidi Yekini, the football legend who scored Nigeria’s first goal at the World Cup in USA ’94 refuses to sleep in his grave as he is still scoring high in his global rating by football aficionados.
Yekini who was fondly called Ye-King by his fans even in death still reigns as he beat the great former striker of the Black Stars of Ghana, Anthony Yeboah to the second best in the world football governing body’s (FIFA) contest for the best striker.
In a poll organized by FIFA on its verified twitter handle recently, fans were asked to say who is better between Rashidi Yekini and Anthony Yeboah of Ghana.
Yekini polled 77.9 percent of the total votes cast beating Yeboah who got only 22.1 percent to be the second best.
The poll which early hours had Yeboah leading took a dramatic turn about four hours later as the votes started pouring in for Yekini who finally clinched the victory.
It would be recalled that Late Yekini was the highest scorer in two AFCON tournaments and is still AFCON’s 3rd all-time scorer.
He was awarded CAF Player of the Year in 1993 and he scored Nigeria’s first World Cup goal in 1994 at USA’94.
Yekini played for Abiola Babes, African Sport, Victoria Setubal and Olympiacos.
In 114 appearances for Setubal, he scored 91 goals. He scored a total of 164 goals in 253 club appearances and 37 goals in 58 national team outings.
He was awarded the best player at the 1994 African Cup of Nations after emerging the Highest Scorer at the tournament.
Yekini also once won the Portuguese Primeira Liga Golden Boot with 21 goals in a season and he played glowingly at Seoul ’88 Olympics.
Yekini who died in Ibadan on May 4, 2012 at the age of 48 gained a massive victory even in death over a living footballer, Yeboah of Ghana who also was a no mean striker, one of the best in Africa.
Yeboah glowed brilliantly in the German Bundesliga where he won the Golden Boot twice in 1993 and 1994. He had a reputation of always scoring award winning goals.
He scored 29 goals in 59 games for his home team, the Black Stars of Ghana.
He remains the third all- time scorer of the Black Stars behind Abedi Pele and Asamoah Gyan. Yeboah played in three African Cup of Nations tournaments.
Despite Yeboah’s brilliant performance though, voters on FIFA’s twitter handle felt it unfair to compare him to Outstanding Yekini.
A total of 10445 votes were cast in the contest.
