FIFA World Player of the Year

The FIFA World Player of the Year is an Association football award given annually to the male and female player who are thought to be the best in the world, based on votes by coaches and captains of international teams. In a voting system based on a type of a Borda count, each coach gets three votes, worth five points, three points and one point, and the winners are ordered based on total number of points. The male award has been criticized for focusing mainly on players from the UEFA Champion's League and largely ignoring players from the South American Copa Libertadores, which has produced more world club champions than Europe. The international leagues of the remaining confederations are also completely ignored.

The award started in 1991 for men and 2001 for women. Since the award's inception, European-based Brazilian players have dominated the male awards, having won 8 out of 17 editions of the prize, including the most recent 2007, far ahead of the top second country France, which has won it 3 times.

The award's youngest winner, male or female, is Ronaldo, who won at the age of 20 in 1996. He won it again in 1997 and 2002. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Mia Hamm, Birgit Prinz, and Marta are the only players to have won twice in a row. Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane and Prinz are the only three-time winners. The oldest winner is Fabio Cannavaro who won in 2006 at age 33. The oldest female winner is Hamm, who won in 2002 at age 30, and the youngest female winner is Marta, who won in 2006 at age 20 (but was seven months older than was Ronaldo in 1996).

Nomination and selection process

Following criticism from some sections of the media over questionable nominations in previous years, in 2004 FIFA drew up a shortlist of 35 men and 21 women from which national team managers and, for the first time, team captains and representatives from FIFPro (the worldwide representative organization for professional players) could vote. [ [http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/awards/gala/news/newsid=94386.html FIFA.com - Thirty-five stars make Zurich shortlist ] ]

Another criticism brought up against the men's nominations is that no player in activity outside of Europe has ever been nominated for the award. Juan Román Riquelme is the only player nominated for the annual award who played for a team outside Europe within the year, on loan to Boca Juniors from Villarreal CF for the first half of 2007. Although players from several nationalities, of three continents, have been nominated and won the award, they were all playing for European clubs at the time of their nomination or victory, for which the European Footballer of the Year award is already been given out.

It has also been suggested that players active in the leagues of other top non-European nations (such as the Argentine, the Brazilian, or the Mexican Leagues), are generally overlooked for the award. Brazilian club teams have won the first three editions of the official FIFA club world championship, yet not one player from those teams was nominated for the men's world player of the year award. Whereas the European champions that the Brazilian club teams beat in the last two finals had more than a few players nominated for the award.

Winners

List of male winners

"* There was a tie for that place"

Wins by club

Wins by country

Table of winners categorised by the player's nationality (not the nationality of her club).

Wins by club

ee also

*Ballon d'Or
*FIFPro World Player of the Year

Notes and references