FIFA Player of the Century

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Five years after the award; winners Maradona and Pelé exchange national team shirts.

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.

[edit] 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. Maradona won the Internet based poll by wide margins, garnering 53.6% of the votes against 18.53% for Pelé. In spite of this, and shortly before the ceremony, FIFA unexpectedly decided to add a second award and appointed a "Football Family" committee composed of football journalists that also gave to Pelé the title of best player of the century to make it a draw. This move was criticized in Argentina. Many suspected that Pelé was rewarded for his constant support of FIFA, in contrast to Maradona's frequent criticism^[1]. Others believe that FIFA was considering issues other than football, notably Maradona's drug problem. Maradona left the ceremony right after receiving his award, and before Pelé was given his.^[2] An example of the fluent cooperation between Pelé and the FIFA is the FIFA 100 best players' list, supposedly created in 2004 by Pelé for FIFA's 100th anniversary, though many^[who?] believe that it was created by the FIFA Executive Committee following political motivations. In that year Pelé was given the FIFA Order of Merit for his contributions to football.

[edit] FIFA internet vote

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

	Player	Nationality	Percentage
1	Diego Maradona	Argentina	53.60%
2	Pelé	Brazil	18.53%
3	Eusébio	Portugal	6.21%
4	Roberto Baggio	Italy	5.42%
5	Romário	Brazil	1.69%
6	Marco van Basten	Netherlands	1.57%
7	Ronaldo	Brazil	1.55%
8	Franz Beckenbauer	Germany	1.50%
9	Zinedine Zidane	France	1.34%
10	Rivaldo	Brazil	1.19%
11	Zico	Brazil	1.15%
12	Garrincha	Brazil	1.08%
13	Johan Cruyff	Netherlands	0.87%
14	Alfredo di Stéfano	Argentina	0.68%
15	Michel Platini	France	0.58%
16	Bobby Charlton	England	0.39%
17	Ferenc Puskás	Hungary	0.37%
18	Lothar Matthäus	Germany	0.37%
19	Lev Yashin	USSR	0.36%
20	George Best	Northern Ireland	0.32%

[edit] Vote specialists (IFFHS)

This award is decided by vote which was conducted with the participation of specialists from around the sports world.

	Player	Nationality	Votes
1	Pelé	Brazil	1705
2	Johan Cruyff	Netherlands	1303
3	Franz Beckenbauer	Germany	1228
4	Alfredo di Stéfano	Argentina  Spain	1215
5	Diego Maradona	Argentina	1214
6	Ferenc Puskás	Hungary	810
7	Michel Platini	France	722
8	Garrincha	Brazil	624
9	Eusébio	Portugal	544
10	Bobby Charlton	England	508
11	Stanley Matthews	England	368
12	Marco van Basten	Netherlands	315
13	Gerd Müller	Germany	265
14	Zico	Brazil	207
15	Lothar Matthäus	Germany	202
16	George Best	Northern Ireland	187
17	Juan Alberto Schiaffino	Uruguay  Italy	158
18	Ruud Gullit	Netherlands	119
19	Didí	Brazil	116
20	Gianni Rivera	Italy	116
21	Giuseppe Meazza	Italy	108
22	Matthias Sindelar	Austria	106
23	Fritz Walter	Germany	103
24	Bobby Moore	England	98
25	José Manuel Moreno	Argentina	96
26	Hugo Sánchez	Mexico	85
27	George Weah	Liberia	79
28	Roger Milla	Cameroon	78
29	José Leandro Andrade	Uruguay	74
30	Just Fontaine	France	73
-	Paco Gento	Spain	73
32	Ladislao Kubala	Hungary  Czechoslovakia  Spain	71
33	Franco Baresi	Italy	70
34	Josef Bican	Austria  Czechoslovakia	63
35	Karl-Heinz Rummenigge	Germany	59
36	Omar Sívori	Argentina  Italy	56
37	Elías Figueroa	Chile	55
38	Kevin Keegan	England	53
39	Sándor Kocsis	Hungary	52
40	Héctor Scarone	Uruguay	51
41	Josef Masopust	Czechoslovakia	46
42	Giacinto Facchetti	Italy	44
43	Raymond Kopa	France	41
-	Sandro Mazzola	Italy	41
45	Uwe Seeler	Germany	40
46	Gunnar Nordahl	Sweden	36
47	Zizinho	Brazil	35
48	Teófilo Cubillas	Peru	34
49	Arsenio Erico	Paraguay	30
50	Denis Law	Scotland	29
51	Silvio Piola	Italy	28
52	Adolfo Pedernera	Argentina	27
53	Obdulio Varela	Uruguay	24
54	Arthur Friedenreich	Brazil	23
55	Michael Laudrup	Denmark	22
56	Alberto Spencer	Ecuador	21
-	József Bozsik	Hungary	21
58	Tostão	Brazil	19
59	Ernst Ocwirk	Austria	18
60	Cha Bum-Kun	Korea Republic	11
-	Paul van Himst	Belgium	11
62	Lakhdar Belloumi	Algeria	10
-	Rabah Madjer	Algeria	10
64	Majed Abdullah	Saudi Arabia	9
-	Luis Cubilla	Uruguay	9
-	Oleg Blokhin	USSR	9

[edit] FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury vote

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

	Player	Nationality	Percentage
1	Pelé	Brazil	72.8%
2	Alfredo di Stéfano	Argentina  Spain	9.8%
3	Diego Maradona	Argentina	6.0%
4	Franz Beckenbauer	Germany	4.0%
5	Johan Cruyff	Netherlands	2.0%
6	Marco van Basten	Netherlands	1.5%

[edit] References