Special Report: FIFA And The Ballon d'Or Controversy

By Benjamin Umuteme

When the announcement was made that that Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, and Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez made up a 23-man shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d'Or award for 2013, it was no surprise to many football followers.

Arguably, the three have been outstanding over the years but the award seem to have lost .

Several outstanding football players have won the world best players award over the years.

Name them: German legends, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best (scotland), Oleg Blohkin (Russia), Luis Suarez (Spain), Johan Cruyff (Holland), Alfredo di stefano (Spain), Furanc Puskas (Hungry).

Others that have won it in the recent past include Ronaldinho, Ronaldo da Lima and Kaka, all of Brazil, Zinedine Zidane of France, Fabio Canavaro of Italy and of late Ronaldo of Portugal and Leonel Messi of Argentina.

But recently, the award has generated so much controversy especially with the duminitive Argentine, Messi charting home the coveted award in the past four years.

However, many have began to doubt FIFA's transparency in giving out this award.

Many analysts are yet to understand the criteria that the football govering body uses to pick the world best.

According to Efemena Oghenerobo, in a chat with FrontiersNews, "when I was growing up, I know that the award was mostly given based on performance for their national teams but since 2010, all that has changed."

But FIFA's criteria for picking the Ballon d'Or winner include: performances in major tournaments; individual and team honours; individual talent; skill and fair play; their overall career and finally personality and charisma.

And again that has left many people more baffled as to why in 2010 and 2012, Argentine Messi was given the award.

In 2010 for instance, Diego Forlan of Athletico Madrid. And Bernt Sneijder of Holland were the stand out performers as they not only helped their respective clubs to win honours, they were also instrumental in how their two countries finished at the world cup in South Africa.

And also in 2012 like in 2010, a similar scenario played out as Messi was presented the trophy without actually being part of a winning World Cup squad. This was the first time the award has been presented in a World Cup year to a player who didn't feature for the World Champions.

With 209 member nations, each country has three votes: one for the national team coach, one for the national team captain and one for a designated member of the media.

When this is aded up it comes to a total of 505 people cast ballots. Broken down it means that 170 captains, 170 coaches and 165 members of the media.

n 2010, Chris Katongo, the captain of Zambia, said he voted for Xavi of Bacelona but his vote was counted for Xabi Alonso. The same goes for Mario Yepes. Goran Pandev and a host of others.

There is no question that Xavi lost a bunch of votes as a result, possibly enough to have seen him finish second (he was third, behind Andres Iniesta), but we'll never know - FIFA never ordered a recount.

Whether this has been an ongoing practice in FIFA or it was just an oversight might never be known to people except those at FIFA .

A football fan who simply described himself a Xchristos believes the Ballon d'Or has become a big joke.

"Ballon d'Or should be about the player who had most better year. it's should be balanced combination of winning major title and to play a major role to winning this titles.

"Cassilas voting for Ramos, Messi voting for Aquerro and bla bla bla buddy to buddy. it's more like some school popularity elections.

Among coaches, he got 44.3% of the weighted vote (five points for being ranked first, three for second, one for a third) and 57% of first place-votes. Ronaldo finished with 23% of the weighted tally and 15% of first place votes.

Captains? Messi got 39.8% of the weighted count and 67% of the first-place vote. Ronaldo clocked in at 21.7% and 14%.

Media? 40.7% of the weighted votes and 55% of first-place tallies for Messi, with 26.3% and 22% for Ronaldo.

What this means is that Messi won all three of FIFA's voting "constituencies". And he got a majority - not a plurality - of the first-place votes in each, suggesting that, if the Ballon d'Or were a democracy, he'd be voted in as its leader quite handily.

The truth is that the Ballon d'Or, like most awards of this nature, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. It's not scientific and it's not even particularly representative of its constituents, and the constituents themselves vary greatly in terms of knowledge and access to information.

Throw in the fact that people aren't told on what basis they should vote and it becomes even less accurate.

Even Cristiano Ronaldo have had course to voiced out his frustration about the award when he said that "It's not a question of life and death - it's not the end of the world, at year, Ronaldo said after finishing behind Messi. "But I still haven't understood the criteria. One year it's about performance, the next it's about silverware."

And the debate goes on: ''If Messi is the best player in the world then Ronaldo is the Best in the Universe. It would be a crime if Cristiano doesn't win The Ballon D'or.'' Says Jose Mourinho while Radamel Falcao of Colombia said after the 2012 award was announced: "You don't need Ballon d'Or,Cristiano. You're the best anyway."

And Didier Drogba sums up the thought of a cross section of footballers: "Ronaldo worked so hard during last year, he was the best and I think he should have won this award."

In 2011 : Ronaldo scores more goals, Messi wins the Ballon D'or because he won the league. While in 2012, Messi scores more goals, Ronaldo wins the league but this time, it is judged by more goals ?

This shifting of the goalpost has made many to conclude that FIFA is Corrupt Towards Messi.

And that thinking was recently reinforced when FIFA President, Sepp Blatter at a function said he prefered Messi to Ronaldo.

Mr. Blatter was quoted as saying that Messi wa more humble than Ronaldo.

Whether this will play apart in determining the winner of the award will be known towards the end of December.

FrontiersNews