FIFA Player of the Century was a one-off award created by FIFA to decide the greatest football player of the 20th century, announced at the annual FIFA World gala, held in Rome on 11 December 2000. Diego Maradona and Pelé were joint winners of the award.FIFA Player of the Century Pele, Maradona split player of 20th century award (12/12/2000) - CBC
Background Since 1991, FIFA has had awards for FIFA World Player of the Year and they decided to bring in the year 2000 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. Many observers complained that the Internet nature of the poll would have meant a skewed demographic of younger fans who would have seen Maradona play, but not Pelé.
As a result, FIFA decided to add a second poll and appointed a "Football Family" committee composed of football journalists, officials, and coaches (50%), and also a voting from the FIFA Magazine subscribers (50%) who voted Pelé the best player of the century with an overall 72.75% of the vote. Thus both were joint winners of the award.
Results
FIFA Internet vote The results of FIFA's Internet poll were as follows: 27 players were voted. Diego Maradona led the poll with 78,000 votes ahead of Pelé on 26,000.Pele sad at Maradona snub (2000) - bbc.co.uk
Rank Player Nationality Percentage 1 Diego Maradona 53.60% 2 Pelé 18.53% 3 Eusébio 6.21% 4 Roberto Baggio 5.42% 5 Romário 1.69% 6 Marco van Basten 1.57% 7 Ronaldo 1.55% 8 Franz Beckenbauer 1.50% 9 Zinedine Zidane 1.34% 10 Rivaldo 1.19% 11 Zico 1.15% 12 Garrincha 1.08% 13 Johan Cruyff 0.87% 14 Alfredo Di Stéfano 0.68% 15 Michel Platini 0.58% 16 Bobby Charlton 0.39% 17 Ferenc Puskás 0.37% 18 Lothar Matthäus 0.37% 19 Lev Yashin 0.36% 20 George Best 0.32% 21 Dino Zoff 0.24% 22 Didi 0.22% 23 Stanley Matthews 0.18% 24 George Weah 0.18% 25 Bobby Moore 0.17% 26 Just Fontaine 0.13% 27 Gerd Muller 0.11%
FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury vote This part of the award was decided by the FIFA Magazine readers vote and the FIFA Grand Jury. Both the FIFA Magazine and the Football Committee's results were multiplied by 50% for the overall percentages of the two separate procedures.
RankPlayerNationalityCombinedPercentage1Pelé 72.75%2Alfredo Di Stéfano9.75%3Diego Maradona 6.0%4Franz Beckenbauer 2.5%5Johan Cruyff 2.0%George Best 2.0%7Roberto Baggio1.0%Garrincha 1.0%Zico 1.0%Michel Platini1.0%Gerd Müller1.0%
FIFA Committee The Football Committee (or Grand Jury) consisted of a group of experts who voted for the best player and the results were multiplied by 50%. Only Pele and Alfredo Di Stéfano received votes.
RankPlayerNationalityPercentage1Pelé 87.50%2Alfredo Di Stéfano12.50%
FIFA Magazine The FIFA Magazine readers voted in a separate poll contributing 50% to the final result of the FIFA Magazine and Grand jury vote, with Pele as the winner.
RankPlayerNationalityPercentage1Pelé 58%2Diego Maradona 12%3Alfredo Di Stéfano7.0%4Franz Beckenbauer 5.0%5Johan Cruyff 4.0%George Best 4.0%7Roberto Baggio2.0%Garrincha 2.0%Zico 2.0%Michel Platini2.0%Gerd Müller2.0%
FIFA All-time no. 10 On March 7, 2014, FIFA's magazine, the FIFA Weekly published a list of the best players in history that wore the iconic number 10 shirt. All players apart from Lionel Messi were retired and had played in the 20th Century. It was the FIFA Weekly's issue #20 and the results were as below:Pelé le ganó a Maradona (2014) - elobservador.com.uyPelè è più forte di Maradona, Zidane 3°, Baggio 9°: i migliori 10 secondo la Fifa (2014) - gazzetta.itΟ Πελέ κορυφαίο «νούμερο 10» (2014) - dealnews.gr
Rank Player Nationality 1 Pelé 2Diego Maradona 3 Zinedine Zidane 4 Ferenc Puskás 5 Michel Platini 6 Roberto Rivellino 7 Lionel Messi 8 Lothar Matthäus 9 Roberto Baggio 10 Gheorghe Hagi 11 Mario Kempes
See also FIFA World Team of the 20th Century FIFA 100 FIFA World Cup Dream Team
References