FIFA Player of the Century was a one-off award created by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

to decide the greatest

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

player of the 20th century, announced at the annual FIFA World gala, held in Rome on 11 December 2000.

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the F ...

and

Pelé Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; born 23 October 1940), known as Pelé (), is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled "the greatest" by FIFA ...

were joint winners of the award.FIFA Player of the Century

Background

Since 1955, FIFA has had awards for

FIFA World Player of the Year The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award presented annually by the sport's governing body, FIFA, between 1991 and 2015 at the FIFA World Player Gala. Coaches and captains of international teams and media representati ...

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. Despite the fact that Eusébio, who played football professionally during Pelé's era, placed third in the poll, 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, who voted Pelé the best player of the century with 72.75% of the vote, thus both were joint winners of the award.

FIFA Internet vote

The results of FIFA's internet Poll were as follows:

FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury vote

This part of the award was decided by the FIFA Magazine readers vote and the FIFA Grand Jury.

References

{{International football Player of the Century +Player, Men Pelé Diego Maradona 2000 sports awards Association football player non-biographical articles