The inaugural recipient was Sari van Veenendaal, thanks in no small part to her stand-out performances at the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019™, which helped the Netherlands make it to the final. The success of this particular category led to the creation of The Best FIFA Women’s Goalkeeper Award in 2019. He was followed by Thibaut Courtois in 2018, Alisson in 2019 and, most recently, Manuel Neuer in 2020. The FIFA Fan Award will be handed out again this year and will honour an outstanding moment or a particularly significant gesture.Īn award for that special breed of player who wears gloves and prowls between the sticks was long overdue, and in 2017 Gianluigi Buffon became the first winner of The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper Award in 2017. The following year, it went to those from Celtic, followed by Peru’s fans in 2018, Palmeiras supporter Silvia Grecco and, most recently, the ultra-dedicated Marivaldo Francisco da Silva, fan of Sport Recife. The first winners of the FIFA Fan Award were the supporters of Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund in 2016. This award is given to the men’s or women’s player who has scored the best goal of the year. In 2009, the FIFA Puskás Award was created in honour of Ferenc Puskás, who was the captain and star of the Hungarian national team in the 1950s. Back in 1987, Scottish club Dundee United’s fans were the first-ever winners, and since then FIFA has gone on to recognise fans, national teams, clubs, players and associations whose adherence to the ideals of fair play have set an example. The oldest accolade is the FIFA Fair Play Award, which already existed before the gala was ever held – a fact which once again underlines the importance that world football’s governing body gives to the sporting aspect of the game. 2019 saw the first-ever FIFA/FIFPro Women's World11.įrom World Player of the Year to The Best: 30 years of history
From 2005 to 2008, FIFPro picked a men’s world XI using the same voting system.
This later became the FIFA/FIFPro Men’s and Women’s World11s – a dream team that to date has been selected by thousands of professional footballers from all around the world, who vote for the most outstanding player in each position. This also brought about two new awards that also feature at the Gala – namely for the Best Team and the Best Newcomers of the year. The first recipient of this accolade was Marvin Lee from Trinidad, with Hiroshi Kagawa the most recent person to be honoured, in 2014.Īugust 1993 saw the creation of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking – a crucial point of reference for the progress of national teams. That year also saw the first ever Presidential Award, designed to honour particular service to the game from personalities and institutions that often get overlooked by the media. In 2001 came the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Player award, which went to USA’s Mia Hamm.
Since then, there have been another 29 awards galas, with the number of prizes increasingly significantly. The FIFA World Player of the Year award was first given out in 1991 to Germany’s Lothar Matthaus, captain of the team that won the FIFA World Cup™ at Italy 1990. To whet your appetite, has decided to indulge in a little nostalgia by picking out some of the highlights of past editions. Preparations are well underway for The Best FIFA Football Awards 2021™ on 17 January 2022 in Zurich, even though the event will be a purely virtual one due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We look back at the highlights from the past 28 years The FIFA awards' ceremony was first held in 1991 The Best FIFA Football Awards 2021 will take place on 17 January 2022