Lionel Messi Voted For Erling Haaland To Win The Best FIFA Men's Player Award

Lionel Messi beat Erling Haaland to win 2023's The Best FIFA Men's Player Award despite Messi voting for Haaland. Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane voted for Messi.

Lionel Messi beat Erling Haaland to win The Best FIFA Men's Player award for 2023 despite the Argentina legend voting for the Manchester City striker.

The result was decided by four separate votes, each contributing 25% to the overall total.

The coach of every men's national team voted in one section, with national team captains voting in another.

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

There was also a vote among journalists, as well as a public poll via FIFA.com.

Messi topped the public and captains' votes but Haaland came out on top in the other two.

After all the voting was done, Messi and Haaland were tied on 48 scoring points.

But Messi was 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.

FIFA published a list on Monday night to reveal which captains voted for Messi and which went for Haaland.

Messi awarded five points to Haaland, three to Mbappe and one to Julian Alvarez.

Inter Miami's Lionel Messi won The Best FIFA Men's Player Award for 2023 despite voting for rival Erling Haaland, who finished very close behind in second place :: IMAGO/Icon Sportswire/Nick Tre. Smith

Haaland was also the top pick for Brazil's Casemiro, Germany's Ilkay Gundogan, Guinea's Naby Keita and Sweden's Victor Lindelof.

Meanwhile, Messi got five points from the likes of France skipper Mbappe, England's Harry Kane, Uruguay's Federico Valverde, Egypt's Mo Salah and Belgium's Romelu Lukaku.

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.