Football Controversial Award
World footballer election: Messi voted for Haaland, Nagelsmann for Mbappé
As of: 2:28 p.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes
Lionel Messi is world footballer of the year
Lionel Messi doesn’t even have to travel anymore, but he still wins everything and has been voted World Footballer of the Year again. He beat goal guarantor Erling Haaland (23) from triple winner Manchester City and Kylian Mbappé (25) from Paris Saint-Germain.
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Lionel Messi is World Player of the Year for the eighth time – to the astonishment of many experts. The Argentine voted for his competitor Erling Haaland. The deciding factor was Messi’s global fan base. Who the other superstars voted for.
Football is a simple game: 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes – and in the end Lionel Messi always wins the FIFA World Player of the Year award. Based on Gary Lineker’s cult saying, this quip applies to the election last Monday evening.
Messi secured the award despite manageable performances at Paris St. Germain and Inter Miami ahead of triple winner Erling Haaland (Manchester City) and Kylian Mbappé (PSG). As simple as the result reads, the calculations behind the scenes are just as complicated.
Things start to get a little complicated when it comes to the correct terminology. The Fifa gala “The Best” should not be confused with the Ballon d’Or – although both events select the best footballers on the planet and even had a temporary liaison between 2010 and 2015 as the “Fifa Ballon d’Or”.
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Since 2016, the awards have been operating on separate tracks again. While only journalists vote on the winner of the Ballon d’Or, organized by the French magazine “France Football”, the Fifa Award includes not only journalists but also coaches and captains of all 211 national teams recognized by the world football association Fifa, as well as fans. All four groups have the same voting weight.
Points are converted into other points
All those entitled to vote award points to the top three players. The best player receives five points, the second place player three and the third place player one point. In the media ranking, one selected journalist per member state takes part in the vote. Between September 14, 2023 and October 6, 2023, all fans also had the opportunity to make their choice online. More than a million people took part in the vote.
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In order to counteract the sheer superiority of the fans, the points are then categorized. After summing up all points within a category (captains, coaches, media, fans), the best-placed player receives 13 so-called “scoring points”. The second place finisher within a category receives eleven points, then nine, eight, seven, until finally the eleventh place finisher receives a “scoring point”. An example: Messi received a total of 677 points from the national team captains, Haaland 557 and Mbappé 282 points. The final ranking included 13 “scoring points” for Messi, eleven for Haaland and nine for Mbappé.
Without fan voting, Haaland would have won
After counting all four categories, Messi and Haaland were at the top of the table with 48 points each. In this case, the FIFA statutes stipulate that the winner will be chosen via the five-point votes of the national team captains. This year, Messi (107) was clearly ahead of Haaland (64).
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Interesting: If you ignore the fan voting, Haaland is ahead of Messi not only in terms of raw points (1827 to 1468), but also in terms of “scoring points” (37 to 35). This explains why the choice – even if it is not explicitly about life’s work – fell on the Argentinean with global appeal for the eighth time.
Moderator Thierry Henry names Lionel Messi the world footballer
Quelle: Getty Images/Kate Green
The fact that Fifa publishes an overview of all the votes cast, as it does every year, brings additional sharpness to the vote. It can be seen, for example, that Messi himself voted for Haaland. By the way, choosing yourself is not allowed. The former BVB attacker received another prominent five-point vote from his current teammate Ilkay Gündogan. The captain of the German national team put Lionel Messi and Rodri in second and third place. Germany’s media representative, Kicker editor Georg Holzner, also voted for Haaland.
Criticism from Norway
Mbappé, on the other hand, distributed his five points to Messi. The Argentine was also chosen by England’s Bayern striker Harry Kane, Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku, Luka Modric (Croatia) and Mohamed Salah (Egypt), among others. National coach Julian Nagelsmann chose Mbappé in first place, followed by Gündogan and Haaland.
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The fact that Messi was ultimately chosen after all the votes were taken into account caused astonishment and irritation in the ballroom in London, as the audience had largely expected Haaland to receive an award. The decision also caused astonishment in the international press. “Messi wins the most controversial ‘The Best’ award of all time,” was the headline of the Spanish “As”. The Norwegian newspaper “Aftenposten” said: “Lionel Messi is no longer one of the ten best football players in the world. But Erling Haaland does.”
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Press comments on the Messi election
