FIFA’s The Best awards row: Multiple voters ‘made mistakes’ with their votes – in a system that saw Lionel Messi trump Erling Haaland – as Roberto Martinez says his ballot went to the WRONG player

Roberto Martinez has claimed that he and others ‘made mistakes’ voting in FIFA’s The Best awards, which recently crowned Lionel Messi ahead of Erling Haaland in controversial circumstances.

Martinez suggested there were a misunderstanding about whether achievements at the 2022 World Cup were meant to count – and revealed his vote for Marcelo Brozovic was therefore an error.   

Messi was crowned FIFA’s Best Men’s Player of 2023 after finishing on equal points with Haaland but garnering more votes from national team captains – despite the latter achieving more personal and team success in the award’s timeframe. 

In his vote, Martinez mistakenly factored in Brozovic coming third with Croatia at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He suggested others made the same mistake, which would have given undue weight to Messi’s achievements with Argentina over Haaland’s triumphs with Manchester City. 

‘It was a mistake,’ Portugal manager Martinez told A Bola when asked about his vote for Brozovic. 

Martinez voted for Marcelo Brozovic and counted his achievements with Croatia in the 2022 World Cup – even though this was supposed to be excluded from consideration

‘Now we have a lot of votes, we have a lot of elections. We have the FIFA player, The Best player, who has been there all season. The first time we have a World Cup in winter and the voting is strange, because it was only for six months.

‘For me, individual awards in football are difficult. I think the individual player represents what the team did. And what about Brozovic and Bernardo, and the players who were in the Champions League final, and who were successful in domestic trophies.

‘But Brozovic is a player who represents an idea of ​​the game, who represents what Croatia is doing. But it was a mistake, for the period in question. 

‘And I think I wasn’t the only one who made that mistake, because when you see the votes, I think there’s more of an intention to see what happened at the World Cup too.’

FIFA’s The Best prize is separate for the Ballon d’Or, which Messi also won, and which counted the Qatar World Cup in its votes.  

The award took into account the period between 19 December 2022 and 20 August 2023, therefore excluding the 2022 World Cup, which Argentina won. 

Messi and Haaland were tied with 48 scoring points each, through a system of voting whereby each men’s international coach and captain voted, as well as journalists and fans with each making up 25 per cent of the overall vote.

However, Messi won due to more first-choice nominations from international captains, with 107 compared to Haaland’s 64.

Lionel Messi pipped Erling Haaland to the prize after they tied on points, and Martinez suggested voters were confused as to whether they were meant to count his World Cup glory

Haaland won the Treble and scored 11 more goals than Messi in the timeframe that was meant to count

As the World Cup was excluded, his contributions for PSG and Inter Miami effectively earned Messi the accolade ahead of Haaland’s treble-winning exploits.

Messi netted nine times for PSG in that period as they won Ligue 1, before scoring 10 goals in seven games for Inter Miami, who won the inaugural Leagues Cup in the US.

By contrast, Haaland scored a club-record 52 goals in all competitions as Man City won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League, with 30 of his strikes coming in the time period the awards were based on.

Messi became the first MLS star to claim the award. It was only established in 2016 but Messi has won the award three times, ahead of two-time champions Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski and once winner Luka Modric. 

Martinez’s comments suggest that due to the unusual timing of the World Cup, there was confusion over whether voters were supposd to take it into consideration. 

Messi, who also won the Ballon d’Or for 2023, won FIFA’s The Best award for the third time

After all, as it finished near the end of December 2022, there was no way it could have been counted in votes for the award the year before. 

Brozovic, for whom Martinez voted, still had a successful 2023, reaching the Champions League final to Inter Milan.  

However, Martinez’s revelation raises questions about how clearly the criteria for the award was communicated to voters.