SEPP BLATTER AND MARADONA QUESTION LIONEL MESSI WINNING GOLDEN BALL

Sepp Blatter awarding Lionel MESSI

Diego Maradona has criticised Fifa for awarding Argentina’s Lionel Messi the Golden Ball award for the World Cup’s best player.

Diego Maradona says the award to Lionel Messi, right, of the World Cup's Golden Ball was a "marketing plan". Manuel Neuer is on the left.

Messi was presented with the award after his country’s 1-0 defeat by Germany in the final in Rio, beating such stellar performers as Arjen Robben, James Rodríguez and Thomas Müller. Despite scoring four goals in seven matches, the Barcelona star was not at his best during the knockout stages and Maradona dismissed the decision as a “marketing plan”.


“Messi? I would give him heaven if possible,” the 1986 World Cup winner said on his television show on Telesur. “But it’s not right when someone wins something that he shouldn’t have won just because of some marketing plan.”
The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, admitted he had not expected Messi to receive the award. “I was myself a little bit surprised when I saw Messi coming up to collect the best player of competition,” he said.
Blatter believes it was Messi’s magic early on in the tournament that led the committee to pick the Argentinian as their star man. “If you compare the beginning of the tournament and why finally the Argentina team got into the final, they were decisive and I think it was a decision [based on that],” he said.
The final dominated Maradona’s thoughts and he criticised the Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella’s decision to substitute Ezequiel Lavezzi with Sergio Agüero at half-time in the final.
“I don’t understand the substitution of Lavezzi. He was phenomenal down the wing. Kun Agüero didn’t have the same impact. It was not his tournament,” he said.
Messi missed a golden opportunity to give Argentina the lead early in the second half before Mario Götze’s winning goal in extra-time and admitted he was devastated not to have led his country to a third World Cup triumph.
“Right now I don’t care about the prize. I don’t care about anything. I wanted to take Argentina to the World Cup for all the people,” Messi told the Spanish newspaper AS.
“We deserved it a bit more after the game we played. It’s very painful to lose the way we did because we were near penalties.
“I believe this World Cup deserved another final because we had chances. We reached the final, while other Argentinians didn’t get past the quarter-finals. But we’re disappointed not to have won this game. There’s a lot of anger.
“While they had control of the ball I think we had the clearer chances. We weren’t lucky enough to be able to take them but I believe our chances were clear.
“We had three clear chances – mine [Gonzalo Higuaín’s] and Rodrigo Palacio – but we couldn’t get it. Now we have to go forward.”

Fifa is considering changing the voting procedure for the Golden Ball after the controversy surrounding the honour of the World Cup’s best player being awarded to Lionel Messi.

“Shall I be diplomatic or tell you the truth?’’ said Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, after being asked about why the Fifa's technical study group voted for a player whose achievements were comfortably eclipsed by the likes of James Rodríguez, Thomas Müller and Toni Kroos, amongst others. “Listen, I was myself a little bit surprised when I saw Messi coming up for the Golden Ball,’’ said Blatter.

“But look at the goals scored by Messi in the different (group-stage) matches. They were decisive.’’

The award used to be voted in conjunction with the media and that may be resumed after the fall-out from this award. “There was a long discussion,’’ said a Fifa spokesman. "The decision was by the technical study group. Maybe it will change again. Maybe it will not have so much weight given to the technical group. We’re open to suggestions. You can make your own opinion on Messi.’’

The Fifa president also admits to feeling some sympathy for Luis Suárez, who has started a four-month ban from all football activity after biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini. Suárez has been sold by Liverpool to Barcelona.