FIFA Best: Why Messi’s latest honour shows that individual awards are just popularity contests

Messi was named FIFA Best Player of the Year for 2023, much to the annoyance of many football fans across the globe.

Monday night, January 15, 2024, in London, Argentina’s superstar Lionel Messi grabbed the headlines again, which has always been the case throughout his career. 

Messi was again in the news after winning the Men’s FIFA Best Player award for the third time and second in a row. 

The Barcelona legend beat Manchester City’s treble winner Erling Haaland and his former Paris Saint-Germain teammate Kylian Mbappe.  It was Messi’s second consecutive win and third overall, having won the 2022 and 2019 editions. 

However, Messi’s latest win has not gone down well with many football fans, and rightly so. The consensus—if you are not a Messi fan— is that the Argentine did not deserve to win this year’s award. 

It also reinforces the point that individual awards are just popularity contests and do not reward the most deserving. 

Why Messi’s FIFA The Best Award is a farce 

When FIFA announced the nominees for this year’s award, it was revealed that the period in review was from December 19, 2022- August 20, 2023. 

During this period, Messi did nothing significant of note. While some of his fans may want to argue that he won the World Cup in 2022, the period in view started a day after the World Cup final, which nullifies the argument. 

Although he did win the Ligue 1 with PSG during this period, it is not enough to earn him the best player of the year. 

While it is a fair argument to say individual awards should not be determined by the number of trophies a player won because trophies are a function of the team, Messi’s numbers during the period in view were not the best, either. 

During this period, Messi scored 11 goals and registered nine assists in the French top flight, which are not great numbers by his standards. 

In the Champions League, he was anonymous in both games against Bayern Munich as PSG crashed out in the round of 16. 

Following the season, Messi joined Inter Miami, where he scored 11 goals and registered five assists in 14 matches. 

While these are decent numbers on paper, it does not mean much, considering the Major League Soccer (MLS) is a D-tier league at best. 

In contrast, Messi’s main competitor going into the ceremony, Erling Haaland, had one of the best individual seasons in recent years. 

The Norwegian led Manchester City to an unprecedented treble in the club’s history. During this period, Haaland scored 18 goals in the league and registered five assists. 

Meanwhile, he also scored seven goals in the Champions League, finishing with 12 in total as Man City won all the major competitions. 

Haaland was not just a treble-winner but also had one of the greatest individual seasons of all time. 

Still, it was not enough to earn him the Best Player award over a player who semi-retired after winning the FIFA World Cup. 

Why FIFA’s voting process needs to change 

In fairness, Lionel Messi is not to blame, rather it is the voting process. Although The FIFA The Best voting process is the fairest as it involves everyone, the issue is that some votes carry more weight than others.

For example, players, coaches and journalists’ votes carry more weight than fans’ votes. Also, the order in which they make their selection is important. 

According to FIFA: Each jury member was requested to nominate, in decreasing order of merit, the three players, three coaches and three goalkeepers whom they considered to be most deserving of the respective award. The three players, three coaches and three goalkeepers nominated by each jury member will receive five points, three points, or one point respectively, depending on whether the jury member places the player, coach, or goalkeeper first (five points), second (three points) or third (one point).

The award is bestowed upon the player, coach or goalkeeper in each particular award category who received the most scoring points.

In this year’s case, both Messi and Haaland finished with the same number of points, but Messi won because he received the most first-choice nominations from national team captains. 

This is where the voting process is flawed because it shows that players vote based on reputation and not performance. 

The same also applies to the FIFPRO XI every year, where players vote based on who they know and not how a player performed. 

It shows players and coaches do not watch enough football and should have voting power to decide who wins the award. 

Leaving the voting decision to journalists may be the way to go, although that does not mean journalists can also not be biased — which was what happened in the Ballon d’Or awards. 

However, it may still be the best way to go, as journalists obviously watch more football games and know these players better than coaches and captains of national teams. 

Also, the FIFA technical panel needs to take the blame, as they were responsible for nominating Messi in the first place when he should not have been shortlisted. 

The technical panel comprises former players, which is still a problem. Like coaches and captains of the national teams, these former players do not watch enough matches to determine who should be nominated. 

As a result, they go with the most popular names, which is not fair as it means players who truly deserve a nomination could miss out. 

If FIFA wants to bring a little bit of credibility to the award, they need to overhaul the process in which they select their technical panel and bring in people who are familiar with the performances of these players. 

But more importantly, the voting process needs to change. Without these changes, this award will be nothing but a popularity contest. 

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