How Lionel Messi Beat Erling Haaland To Win The Best FIFA Men's Player Award Despite Man City Star Topping Journalist Vote

Lionel Messi won The Best FIFA Men's Player award for 2023 despite journalists voting overwhelmingly in favor of Erling Haaland. FIFA's voting system explained.

Lionel Messi won The Best FIFA Men's Player award for 2023 despite journalists voting overwhelmingly in favor of Erling Haaland.

There were four separate votes conducted, with each making up 25% of the overall result.

Haaland also topped a vote among national team coaches but Messi came out on top in a vote conducted by national team captains.

Each coach and captain voted for three players, awarding five points to their first pick, three to their second and one to their third.

The fourth vote was open to the public, with fans making their choices via FIFA.com. Messi won this vote by a landslide.

However, after all the voting was done, Messi and Haaland were tied on 48 scoring points, with Kylian Mbappe third on 35 points.

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.

2023 Voting Results For The Best FIFA Men's Player Award

	Coaches points	Captains points	Media points	Fans points	Scoring points
Lionel Messi	476	677	315	613,293	48*
Erling Haaland	541	557	729	365,893	48
Kylian Mbappe	302	282	168	201,866	35

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.

Nevertheless, it is likely that many voters were still influenced by Messi's exploits at Qatar 2022, where he produced seven goals and three assists in Argentina's victorious seven-game campaign.

Erling Haaland narrowly lost out to Lionel Messi after a complicated voting process for The Best FIFA Men's Player award :: IMAGO/Bildbyran/Joel Marklund