FIFA Player of the Century

FIFA Player of the Century was a one-off award created by FIFA to decide the greatest football player of the 20th century. Diego Maradona shared the honour with Pelé. The two men are both officially considered winners of this award.

Background

Since 1991, FIFA have had awards for FIFA World Player of the Year and they decided to bring in the new millennium by conducting a public vote to decide the FIFA Player of the Century. This was to be decided by votes on their official website, their official magazine and a grand jury. However, the statistical relevance of a Poll realized through the Internet was widely criticized since it couldn't embrace all age and social groups from around the World. At the same time it was ill planned; FIFA did not contract a specialized organization to observe and supervise the poll.

As a result, this internet poll contained basic failings like the chance of one person voting many times for his/her preferred athlete. In consequence, a Cyber Blitz by Maradona's fans from Argentina [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/1066833.stm BBC - "cyber-blitz by Maradona fans in Internet Poll"] ] gave him 78,000 votes against of Pelé's 26,000. [cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/1066833.stm|publisher=BBC|title=Pelé sad at Maradona snub|date=29 November 2007] At this point, as Pelé had won the readers poll in official magazine and the verdict of a grand jury of athletes, coachs, managers and specialized journalists, FIFA decided to split the award between the two men [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/2000/12/11/Pelé_maradona/ CNNSI - "Split decision: Pelé, Maradona each win FIFA century awards after feud"] Last retrieved May 30 2006] .

FIFA internet vote

The results of FIFA's internet Poll were as follows:

FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury vote

This part of the award was decided by the FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury.

References