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| Edited By: Nirmalya Dutta |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Sep 29, 2017, 05:53 PM IST
FIFA recently released its list of 23 footballers shortlisted for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2014 award and it was missing one Uruguay striker – Luis Suarez. The final shortlist includes the following:
Gareth Bale (Wales), Karim Benzema (France), Diego Costa (Spain), Thibaut Courtois (Belgium), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Angel Di Maria (Argentina), Mario Goetze (Germany), Eden Hazard (Belgium), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Toni Kroos (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Javier Mascherano (Argentina), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Mueller (Germany), Manuel Neuer (Germany), Neymar (Brazil), Paul Pogba (France), Sergio Ramos (Spain), Arjen Robben (Netherlands), James Rodriguez (Colombia), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Yaya Toure (Côte d’Ivoire).
Suarez’s exclusion is particularly contentious because he was absolutely devastating – for both his club and country – last season. One can only assume that the reason he’s missing from the shortlist is because of the bite incident involving Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup in Rio. Suarez has already served his time for the crime - he has not played football in the last four months. So it’s extremely high-handed of the world’s governing body to not include him in the shortlist.
The award – a fusion of the Ballon d’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year – is handed to the best player in the world. The winner is selected by captains and coaches of international football teams and also journalists who used to nominate France Football’s Ballon d’Or winner.
If this is a case of FIFA making an example, then it’s very wrong. The award is for sporting ability, not for best behaviour (they have the Fairplay Award for that). Last season, Suarez scored a staggering 31 goals for Liverpool to equal Cristiano Ronaldo’s haul for Real Madrid in the league to win the European Golden Shoe. And he did that in a team that wasn’t extravagantly assembled as Ronaldo’s Real Madrid.
His final goal tally last season meant he was only the seventh striker to score 30 goals in a Premier League season. He wasn’t just one of the best players last season; his performances were among the best ever seen over the course of the season.
As his former manager Brendan Rodgers said, "He (Suarez) has shown in his time at Liverpool in the last year or so that he is near unplayable. He on his own can occupy a back four with his movement and his cleverness." A study by Bloomberg actually ranked Suarez ahead of Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Cristiano Ronaldo on ‘Europe’s most influential player’ list of the year.
But FIFA has always been finicky about such things, preferring to play it safe. Zinedine Zidane also missed out on both awards (back then FIFA World Player of the World and Ballon d’Or) in 2006 after head-butting Marco Materazzi (what is it about Italian defenders that offends people?).
But the truth is that even if Suarez was in the shortlist, he probably woudn’t have won the award with Ronaldo, Messi or one of the World Cup-winning Germans likeliest to pick up the gong. But that would have been up to the jurors – coaches, captains and journalists – to decide. FIFA had no right taking away that option from them. After all, the only question they need to ask was, ‘Was Luis Suarez one of the 23 best players last season?’ And that answer is an overwhelming ‘Yes’.
