In the world of football different awards are won. These include individual awards which are awarded to the person individually. Club awards also exist which are given to the entire club as the club honour. Some individual awards included the golden boot for the topscorer, golden globe for the best goal keeper and many more awards. However for the clubs they are mostly given trophies accompanied with medals. Medals can be golden or silver medals depending on the trophy won.
However there are two most valuable and most respected individual awards. These are the “barron d’or and fifa player of the year award”. Most people wonder which of the two awards has the most value. Most people wonder how the awards are given and when did the awards come into existence. Which of the awards came first? Let’s look at brief history of each of the two mighty awards.
The Barron d’or. The barron d’or which is known as the golden ball was first established by the French magazine known as the France football since 1956. However in 2010 the barron d’or award was merged with the fifa player of the year as one award. Due to some disagreements the merging did not last for so long. This is because in 2015 the two awards had to part ways again and each award became separate from each other. This made barron d’or to again become and an independent award upto date.
However UEFA had to agree that in 2024, the uefa awards should combine with barron d’or awards. Implying that next time the UEFA player of the year will be decided in France. Upto date barron d’or has been there for 56 years. Current holder of the barron d’or is the Argentine international Lionel Messi. Messi also holds the record of winning many barron d’or awards (8). Christiano Ronaldo the Portuguese international however is the most nominated player 18 times.
Originally the award was awarded to only European players however in 2007 the organizers had to change in the rules. The rules expanded the award to be awarded to all players across the globe. This made the international coaches and captains to take part in voting. The first winner of the barron d’or award was black pool player Stanley Matthews. While George Weah is the only African player to win the award. Due to covid 19 the barron d’or of year 2020 was not awarded while Toberto Lewandowski was supposed to win it.
The fifa player of the year. This is the most valuable fifa award as it is awarded by the federation of international football association. Therefore it awarded to the best player in the world according to FIFA. It is not common by hearing because it was formed after the barron d’or was already in existence. This therefore means that people are used of the barron d’or than the fifa men’s player of the year award. The award was first established in the year of 1991. In 2010 the award had to combine efforts with the barron d’or to make it one award. After the two awards separated again in 2015, the awards had to change the name to fifa mens player of the year.
The current holder of the fifa men’s player of the year is lionel messi while Christiano Ronaldo, Roberto Lewandowski and lionel messi have the most awards with 2 each. Christiano Ronanldo was the first winner of the award in 2016 after the award separated from barron d’or.
Accordingly you will realise that the fifa mens player award is the most valuable award because it is awarded by FIFA. Reminder FIFA is the ruling body of the international football world wide.
