Lionel Messi won The Best FIFA Men’s Player for 2023, beating both Paris Saint Germain (PSG) attacker, Kylian Mbappe and Manchester city’s striker Erling Haaland.
The Argentine football great won the honor once again following another qualifying period where he dazzled football fans across the globe.
The FIFA Awards ceremony was held in London on Monday, January 15.
Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland both received 48 points after the votes cast by football players and other groups from across the world were tallied.
Messi Wins After National Teams Captains Vote.
Conequently, the winner was decided by the highest number of “Five Point” scores from the votes cast by the National-Team Captains, as per article 12 of the Rules of Allocation.
This saw Messi earn 107 points compared to Haaland’s 64 points.
Messi was ultimately named as the winner after receiving the most first-choice nominations from national team captains.
Among the national team captains who voted for Messi were Harry Kane, Mbappe, Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Aaron Ramsey and Luka Modric, while Ilkay Gundogan and Casemiro voted for Haaland.
The Argentine forward scored nine goals for PSG as they won the French Ligue 1 title and 10 goal in seven games as Inter Miami won the inaugural Leagues Cup in the United States.
On his part, Haaland grabbed a record 36 Premier League goals last season.
In all competitions in 2022-23, he scored a club-record of 52 goals – with 28 of them coming after the World Cup, plus another two goals this season before August 20.
France’s Mbappe won the Ligue 1 title with PSG – and clinched a fifth consecutive Golden Boot.
Also Read: Messi Lands Another Trophy With Argentina After 3-0 Finalissima Win Over Italy
Other Winners at the 2023 Awards
Manchester city’s Coach Pep Guardiola clinched the Men’s Coach of the year award ahead of Luciano Spalletti and Simone Inzaghi.
Spalletti guided Napoli to their first Serie A title in 33 years with a record-equaling five games to spare.
Inzaghi was nominated after winning the Coppa Italia with Inter Milan and taking the Milan side to the Champions League final, where they lost 1-0 to Manchester City.
Six Manchester City players were named in the men’s team of the year – defenders John Stones, Kyle Walker and Ruben Dias, midfielders Bernardo Silva and Kevin de Bruyne and striker Haaland.
In the best goalkeeper category, Manchester City’s goalkeeper Ederson won the award ahead of Real Madrid’s Thibault Courtois and Al Hilal’s Yassine Bounou.
Aitana Bonmati was named the Best FIFA Women’s player, Mary Earps the Best FIFA Women’s goalkeeper and Sarina Wiegman as the Best FIFA Women’s coach.
Real Madrid and England midfielder Jude Bellingham was also selected and was the only English player named in the side that does not play for City.
Men’s team of the year: Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid), John Stones, Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva (all Manchester City), Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid), Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland (both Manchester City), Kylian Mbappe (Paris St-Germain), Lionel Messi (Inter Miami) and Vinicius Jr (Real Madrid).
However, this year, the men’s FIFA Best Awards, and Puskas Award, extended from 19 December 2022 to 20 August 2023, because the Qatar World Cup was included in last year’s ceremony.
Also Read: How the Ballon d’ Or Awards’ Winners are Selected
History and Past Winners of FIFA Best Awards:
Between 2010 and 2015, the Ballon d’Or temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year, giving rise to the FIFA Ballon d’Or.
However, in 2016, this partnership ended as FIFA reintroduced its independent annual award, The Best FIFA Men’s Player.
Cristiano Ronaldo consecutively won the first and the second-Best FIFA Men’s player of the year award, followed by Luka Modric in 2018.
The Inter Miami superstar later won the award in 2019 and 2022 and now in 2023 making him the player to have won the award the most times.
Messi was named the best men’s player in 2022 after leading Argentina to FIFA World Cup glory in Qatar.
He also won the Ballon d’Or award in 2023 a record eight times.
Voting Process in the FIFA Awards
According to FIFA voting rules, the winners of the various categories are selected by an international jury comprising the current coaches of all women’s/men’s national teams (one per team), the current captains of all women’s/men’s national teams (one per team).
In addition, one specialist journalist from each territory represented by a national team and fans from all over the world registered on FIFA.com are allowed to vote.
“Each jury member is 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 receive five points, three points, or one points 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 candidate in each award category who received the most points.
For the avoidance of doubt, women’s national-team coaches and captains vote for women’s awards, while men’s national-team coaches and captains vote for men’s awards.”
