A former teammate of Cristiano Ronaldo has taken a jab at Lionel Messi after winning the Men's FIFA Best Player Award for 2023.
The Argentine once again edged Erling Haaland to win the award with the Argentine's former colleague Kylian Mbappe coming in third place.
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After his victory, however, some believe that other players were perhaps more worthy of the award.
One of those people is former Real Madrid captain Iker Casillas who alluded to the process of electing the winner as something that was not done "fairly".
"You create some nice prizes and you are taking them away by not doing things fairly. 'The Smile' more like. Anyway, good night!" Casillas wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Over 28,000 professional footballers voted for the 2023 FIFA FIFPRO Men's and Women's #World11.Here's how it works ??pic.twitter.com/ZN2wftAzka
— FIFPRO (@FIFPRO) January 16, 2024
With national team captains and managers having the responsibility of casting their votes for whom they feel deserve the award, Cristiano Ronaldo, barely featured at the awards ceremony and handed the duties over to compatriot Pepe.
The defender left Messi out of his top three choices, opting to go with Bernardo Silva, Haaland and Victor Osimhen.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup winner, meanwhile, won the award because he received more first-place votes from national team captains than the Norwegian striker.
The Argentine was the first choice for Mbappe, Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Virgil van Dijk, Robert Lewandowski, and Romelu Lukaku among others.
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