Netherlands native Jan Esselman received this year’s Xavier Mateu Award during the CEB Congress last weekend in Val d’Europe. After working several decades in the technical commission of the Confederation of European Baseball, Esselman became CEB President for the 2013 to 2017 term. He was only the second Dutch president for CEB besides Guus van der Heijden in the 1980ies. Last year he got succeeded by Didier Seminet from France. The Xavier Mateu Award was created in 2014 after the sudden death of Xavier Mateu in the year before and is honoring people in European baseball. Last year Jason Holowaty was honored for his work as MLB’s development director.