How Messi won FIFA best player award 2023

In a rather surprising turn of events, Lionel Messi was declared FIFA's best men's player for 2023 in the early hours of Tuesday (Bangladesh time).

The current Ballon d'Or holder was a surprise winner, edging past Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, considering he hadn't done anything substantial since winning the FIFA World Cup with Argentina in 2022, which was not considered for this award.

FIFA's selection criteria for the 2023 men's awards were based on achievements during the period from December 19, 2022 to August 20, 2023.

The 2022 awards had covered the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which ended on December 18.

Still, Messi edged Haaland in the voting by the barest of margins.

There were four separate votes conducted, with each contributing 25 per cent of the overall result.

The journalists voted overwhelmingly in favor of Haaland. The Norwegian also topped in the votes of the national team coaches while Messi topped among the national team captains.

Every coach and captain under FIFA could vote for three players, awarding five points to their first pick, three to their second and one to their third.

There was also a public vote, which Messi won by a landslide.

After the voting, Messi and Haaland were tied on 48 points while Mbappe had 35.

As per FIFA's tie-breaking rules, Messi was then declared the winner because he had received the highest number of five-point scores from the votes cast by the men's national team captains.