Top 5 most prestigious awards in football.

While the debate who is the best ever football player in the world is a never-ending , here are the 5 most prestigious awards in football.

Top 5 most prestigious awards in football.

While one knows that numbers aren’t everything in the game and the greatest footballers produce moments of beauty that transcend all tangible achievements.

prestigious individual awards of this team game continue to be fiercely contested and bring glory and bragging rights to their winners.

There are even awards that aim to measure aesthetics in football (more on that later).

Nevertheless, adding an individual award to one’s CV can change one’s career, something that has assumed greater significance in the 21st century.

In this article, we are going to take a look at the five most prestigious individual awards in football.

1 – The Ballon d’Or

The FIFA Ballon d’Or  was an annual association football award presented to the world’s best men’s player from 2010 to 2015.

History
First award	2010
Editions	6
Final award	2015
Most wins	Lionel Messi (4 awards)

Awarded jointly by FIFA and France Football, the prize was a merger of the FIFA World Player of the Year award and the Ballon d’Or, the two most prestigious individual honours in world football.

Unlike the Ballon d’Or awarded by France Football, the FIFA Ballon d’Or, was not awarded based on votes from international journalists, but votes from national team coaches and captains, who selected the players they deemed to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.

2 – FIFA World Player of the Year

The Best FIFA Men’s Player is an association football award presented annually by the sport’s governing body, FIFA, to the world’s best men’s player since 2016.

From 1991 to 2009, FIFA presented the best men’s football player in the world with the World Player of the Year award before it merged the award with the Ballon d’Or for six years.

Post this partnership, both the men’s and women’s awards were subsumed into the new Fifa Best Awards.

First awarded	2016
Current holder	Robert Lewandowski (2nd award)
Most awards	Cristiano Ronaldo  Robert Lewandowski (2 awards each)

The award was formerly known as the FIFA World Player of the Year, which was merged with France Football’s Ballon d’Or in 2010 to become the FIFA Ballon d’Or in a six-year partnership.

3 – The European Golden Shoe

The European Golden Shoe, also known as European Golden Boot, is an award that is presented each season to the leading goalscorer in league matches from the top division of a European national league. The trophy is a sculpture of a football boot.

Presented by	L’Équipe (1968–1991)  European Sports Media (1997–present)
First awarded	1968 (awarded for most goals scored in the 1967–68 season)
Currently held by	Robert Lewandowski (2nd award)
Most awards	Lionel Messi (6 awards)

From its inception in the 1967–68 season, the award, originally called “Soulier d’Or”, which translates from French as Golden Shoe or Boot, has been given to the top goalscorer in all European leagues during a season. 

4 – The FIFA Puskas Award

The FIFA Puskás Award is an award established on 20 October 2009 by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), at the behest of then-president Sepp Blatter, to be awarded to the male or female judged to have scored the most aesthetically significant, or “most beautiful”, goal of the calendar year.

The time-frame for the first award was July 2008 to July 2009. The annual award was presented for the first time during the 2009 FIFA World Player of the Year Gala on 21 December in Switzerland, with Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo being the first prize winner.

The award is in honour of Ferenc Puskás, the striker of Real Madrid during the late 1950s and the 1960s, and central member of the highly successful Hungarian side of the same era.

5 – Most Valuable Player (MVP)

The National Football League Most Valuable Player Award (NFL MVP) is an award given by various entities to the American football player who is considered the most valuable in the National Football League (NFL) during the regular season.

Awarded for	Most valuable player in the National Football League
Presented by	Associated Press
History
First award	1957
Most wins	Peyton Manning (5)
Most recent	Aaron Rodgers (4)

Organizations which issue an NFL MVP award include the Associated Press (AP) and the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). The AP’s award is considered the de facto official NFL MVP award.

Since the 2011 season, the NFL has held the annual NFL Honors ceremony, which recognizes the winner of the Associated Press MVP award.