Ballon D'Or 2013: Why Nobody Should Attach Importance to FIFA's Award

Since the combining of FIFA's World Player of the Year award and France Football's Ballon d'Or in 2010, the FIFA Ballon d'Or seems to take up more column inches in the media with each passing year.

No longer is the award just a prize handed out in January; it is now a highly debated process right from the announcing of the initial short list through to the final ceremony in Zurich.

However, there is little reason for the event to be given such a meaningful status within the footballing calendar. Yes, it is nice to salute the achievements of certain individuals, but football is a team game and trophies are thus a far more valuable commodity than any such prize.

No one seems entirely sure what the Ballon d'Or is supposed to represent, either. Does being the best individual player of the past 12 months require you to have won tournaments? Surely not. Yet, there has been much support for Franck Ribery of late using exactly that argument.

Indeed, it has been a common theme of the award over many years that importance to winning trophies is taken into account. That, then, discredits the prize as being solely for individual achievement.

Yet, we now live in an age where social media has seen debates as to who is "better" lose ambiguity. You have to either be a fan of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, while to like both equally is simply unacceptable.

FIFA's award plays to this logic.

Over recent weeks, largely due to a four-goal haul against a woefully poor Anderlecht side, we have had the campaign for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to win the award.

Ibrahimovic is a magnificent talent who has achieved much in his time at PSG. He is a unique player who is fit to grace any stage in the world. Has he been the best player in the world this year? No, not by some distance.

It is an award, too, that fails to take into account anyone who doesn't score goals in abundance.

Philipp Lahm has been sensational for Bayern Munich this year, Bastian Schweinsteiger also, yet we can already discount them from the running for the overall prize.

Indeed, David Alaba has been the undoubted best left-back in the world this year, but does not even make the 23-man short list as posted by FIFA on October 29.

Quite how that has happened when someone as regularly disappointing over the past year as Chelsea's Eden Hazard makes the grade is frankly bemusing. Indeed, most Blues supporters would struggle to make a case for Hazard over even teammate Juan Mata.

Such choices are echoed in FIFA's selections for Manager of the Year. There is no Diego Simeone, despite turning Atletico Madrid into a true rival for Spain's top two, and there is no Marcello Lippi, winner of the Chinese Super League in record-breaking fashion and the first man to take a Chinese side to the final of the AFC Champions League (which they may still win).

Cuca, whose Atletico Mineiro side won the Copa Libertadores, is also overlooked, while Stephen Keshi's achievements in guiding Nigeria to an Africa Cup of Nations championship also fail to gain recognition.

All these candidates are discarded in favour of Jose Mourinho (second in La Liga), Arsene Wenger (fourth in Premier League) and Vicente del Bosque (second in Confederations Cup), yet we are still supposed to take the award seriously?

While such inadequacies exist in the selection process, there is little point even debating the awards. FIFA's marketing men have done a brilliant job at making the process a real event in the footballing calendar, but the truth is it should be an inconsequential popularity contest.

The next stage of voting, where the lists are handed to national team captains and coaches, as well as one journalist from each nation, only reinforces the point of the contest being flawed. A quick look at the FIFA documents from last year will demonstrate some of the more bizarre choices.

Once voting for countrymen, teammates and the like has been discounted, it is a fairly redundant process. After all, we have known every year that Lionel Messi is set to win with Cristiano Ronaldo almost certainly in second.

It makes for a good talking point in pubs and bars, but that is the extent of importance the award should be given. With such inadequate short lists and voting systems, as well as Sepp Blatter lapping up the attention on the night, it is an event best avoided.