Guerin Sportivo World Player of the Year awards 1979-1986

It was taken from El Gráfico but the original source must be in Brazilian archives that may be digitally available but difficult to track down (I think).

 

Although I believe I shared this in the past on another thread, I’ll place it here as it supports the views of Guerin Sportivo for the 1979 year.

Kevin Keegan and Diego Maradona were both voted as the only footballer’s in a Sweden newspaper of the best athletes of the year.

Sweden’s sports newspaper of “Idrotsbladett” used the votes of 36 journalists from different countries to pick the best of each discipline.



El Gráfico 1979 posted this information.

 

http://www.iffhs.de/posts/278

Argentina’s El Gráfico mentioning the number 1 sports’ figures of 1988 (December 27, 1988)

Although Maradona took the number 1 spot, it is mentioned that Van Basten and Gullit were his main competition, which coincides with the other sources of IFFHS and to a certain degree Gazzetta dello Sport.

 

This was an interesting find that Guerin Sportivo published in the beginning of 1993.

The Portuguese magazine “A Bola” received the honor of awarding FIFA’s world player of the year awards in 1992, which included foreigners.

In the article below the final results of 1992 had Van Basten as the winner, but that is not new, but what is interesting is to see the full list which usually can only be found with partial results listed online, like with the RSSSF or Wikipedia pages.

Another point that I read that was revealing was how the previous two winners, according to GS, was Maradona in 1990 and Matthäus in 1991. With Matthäus it is well documented that he took officially the first prize but it seems that the 1990 year may have been an unofficial award, which has been omitted apparently from the records.




http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/fifa-awards.html

 

The IFFHS, since 1988, had in 1990 Matthäus 1 and Maradona 2, but according to GS this FIFA award started in 1990, with Maradona taking the first prize. However, no where can this information be found. For those conspiracy theorists, Maradona being at odds with FIFA at that stage, may simply have been shunned aside and eliminated from the records.

 

Mate, according to GS, this FIFA award had only been handed out previously twice in 1990 and 1991, respectively. Whether GS made an error is unknown, but the IFFHS seemed to be another distinction since it started in 1988. Now there is only two viable possibilities here: Either GS made an error or the original FIFA award commenced in 1990 but was scrapped, altered or eliminated. This second option would not be out of bounds because it is highly unlikely that FIFA would want to award Maradona a prize in the first months of 1991 for the year of 1990, when not only was he going to be banned from world football, but you are well aware that Maradona had declared FIFA as corrupt after WC90 and I see very unlikely that FIFA would want to grant any of their awards in person to this man that made such blatant claims. In fact FIFA suspended Maradona twice in the timespan of 3 years (1991-1994).

 

The same Moggi/Napoli clan that abandoned Maradona after WC90...?

I didn’t see any claims until February of 1993 that Maradona had obtained the 1990 award, by then when he was no longer affiliated with the club. There was simply no coverage and everything seemed to be censured right away, assuming an award existed.

The truth is FIFA were never going to hand Maradona any prize after his slanderous claims that the WC90 draw had been rigged — an infraction that almost denied him participation — with FIFA publicly stating he should shut up, and then afterwards claiming that the tournament had been corrupt.

This same FIFA that is judicially known to have been corrupt then invented in 2000 a ridiculous internet fan poll for the best player of the past century, won by Maradona, only to then invent a separate award held by the committee to award Pelé after the results fell into Maradona’s favor.

 

FIFA boss shielded Maradona ? Haha... don’t make me laugh, they ended his career virtually at the age of 30, with all those suspensions and only used his image to propagandize their WC94 and then gave him the boot. And the Moggi/Napoli connection only protected him as long as they felt needed, once they had enough of him they too turned their backs on him and he was kicked out of Italy.

But yes, sigh... it’s pointless in arguing with a forum member that seems agitated that Guerin Sportivo published an article in early 1993 that goes against his views.

 

L’Equipe at the end of 1979 had its reporters choose the best athletes from every discipline and Kevin Keegan was voted the top footballer.

El Informador (Mexican newspaper)

 

For 1980 the agency of France-Presse in Paris elected through their journalists the top athletes of the year and Diego Maradona was the top voted footballer.




For ABC Madrid, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was their footballer of the year in 1980 in a list of the top athletes of every discipline.


Source: El Informador (Mexico) and ABC Madrid

 

For 1988 the best Latin American athletes were chosen by the agency of AFP with Diego Maradona as the top footballer of the year.

El Informador (Mexico)

 

Yes, I will check and let you know.

 

Edit: This is the Balón d’Or voting. I will see if the FIFA one exists.



The list falls in line with online sources that are available.

 

It appeared to be similar to the 1979 Guerin Sportivo player of the year award, with only the magazine choosing their pick without using foreign correspondents.

Edit: I think as GS did in 1979, the editors of staff of FF2 were honoring their player of the year in 1980. I do not know if this type of award was only handed out once or continued until the supplement of FF concluded.

 

It’s just the winner with a few pages dedicated to the player as was the case with Guerin Sportivo.