FIFA Organization

It’s that time of year again: FIFA has announced the 10 finalists for the annual Puskás Award, the trophy given to the player, male or female, “judged to have scored the most aesthetically significant, or ‘most beautiful,’ goal of the calendar year.”

This most certainly wasn’t the case last year when Mohamed Salah scooped the award after Liverpool and Egypt supporters spammed the fan vote. The goal Salah scored against Everton back in December of 2018 hadn’t even won the Premier League’s Goal of the Month, so it was an awful joke to see it given the prestigious Puskás Award.

Frank de Boer, manager of Atlanta United, has become the talk of the town after calling equal pay “ridiculous.” 

In an interview with the Guardian he said:

We all know that Manchester City loves to spend big, and it has been under the watch of just about every governing body in football as of late. FIFA and UEFA are the big ones, and they have been after City for a while now after exorbitant amounts of spending and the suspicious transfers of youth players since Pep Guardiola arrived in 2016.

The U.S. Soccer Federation’s hiring of lobbyists is not going well.

The USSF lobbyists were ostensibly hired to try to convince politicians that the USWNT was in fact paid quite well and the USSF should not be punished for an inequality between the men’s and women’s national teams. 

But things appear to be going south for U.S. Soccer.

Video footage has circulated around social media of construction workers in Qatar going on strike in response to the inhumane working conditions they have dealt with during stadium construction for the upcoming 2022 World Cup. The strike began on Sunday with thousands of workers protesting on the outskirts of one of their work-sites.

Lionel Messi was not happy after his team was beaten by Brazil in the 2019 Copa América — so unhappy he suggested the match was rigged.

Messi will be even unhappier after being handed a three-month ban for his comments.

As was anticipated following the success of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a special FIFA Council vote has unanimously approved the expansion of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup to a 32-team field. 

The nominations for FIFA's self-indulging award of naming "The Best FIFA Football Awards" for coaches and players were announced Wednesday morning. The winners will be revealed Sept. 23 in Milan at The Best FIFA Football Awards show. Here are the FIFA Best Awards nominees for 2019.

2019 FIFA Best Awards Nominees

Men's player finalsists

 Ready? #TheBest Men's Player nominees: