Congratulations to Cristiano Ronaldo for winning the 2008 FIFA World Player of the Year award. While Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t my choice for the award, its easy to see why he won but the beef I have with this award has to do with the choices for the shortlist of candidates.

If this is supposed to be the “World” Player of the Year than how come only players based in Europe were on the shortlist. In geography class, we were taught that there were 7 continents and life has shown that Europe isn’t the only place that produces fine things, whether its goods & services or footballers.

In a year, when you had an Olympic tournament, a Euro 2008, a African Cup of Nations, World Cup qualifying, and various continental club tournaments full of outstanding performances, don’t tell me that FIFA couldn’t find players not based in Europe to put on the “World” Player of the year shortlist. COME ON, MAN!

Let’s begin. How could Deco be on the shortlist when he did nothing in ’08 and Joffre Guerron of Liga De Quito, the face of the 1st ever Ecuadorean side to win the Copa Libertadores is not on the shortlist. Gigi Buffon of Juventus is a great keeper but does he deserve to be on the shortlist over Sebastian Battaglia, the influential midfielder of Boca Juniors who actually won a trophy in 2008.

What about Mohamed Aboutrika? The Pharoahs playmaker had a double of his own winning the African Champions League with Al-Ahly and the African Cup of Nations with Egypt and he was not on the shortlist while Steven Gerrard of Liverpool was. Gerrard didn’t win anything and England didn’t even participate in Euro 2008.

The Chelsea duo of Didier Drogba & Frank Lampard are good players no doubt, but did not deserve to be shortlisted. Even Kaka who is a great player had a down year and shouldn’t have been shortlisted. Clear them out to make room for these guys who should have been on the shortlist:

Server Djeparov the Uzbekistan midfielder who won the Asian Footballer of the Year has helped Borat’s most hated rival into the final phase of Asian World Cup qualifying.

Guillermo Barros Schelotto, the ex Boca star won the MLS MVP & MLS Cup MVP in leading the Columbus Crew to its 1st MLS Championship.

Yasuhito Endo, the Gamba Osaka playmaker led the Japanese side to an Asian Champions League trophy and a 3rd place finish in the FIFA Club World Cup.

Lucas Barrios was a goal scoring beast for Colo Colo this year and didn’t get any love from FIFA or El Pais. Him & Guerron have legitimate beefs especially with El Pais.

Washington of Fluminense was deserving of shortlist recognition as he was a big part in the Tricolor Carioca reaching their 1st Libertadores final and was one of the co-leading goal scorers in the 2008 Brasileirao.

The fact is that the current FIFA “World” Player of the Year is not a global world encompassing award. Its a Eurocentric award, therefore the word “World” should be dropped from the name and simply known as the FIFA Player of the Year. That way, people know that a select few in FIFA’s leadership came up with a shortlist to acknowledge those players they deemed worthy of such an award.

FIFA’s Eurocentric minded selectors cornered national team captains and coaches into voting for European based players by only choosing European based players for the shortlist. The “World” in the FIFA “World” Player of the Year award is like when a U.S. professional sports team wins their league and claims to be “World Champion” that’s total bull$%^&!.

To legitimize the FIFA World Player of the Year award, winners of the player of the year for all the FIFA confederations should be automatically shortlisted. CONCACAF needs to get with the program cause the other confederations either give a P.O.Y. themselves or recognize their P.O.Y. through some media outlet. An idea would be to breakdown the shortlist in a manner similar to the break down of places each confederation receives in the World Cup tournament. It would be probably still be Euro dominated but at least there would be more of a global representation in the award’s shortlist. Now whether those nominated for the award actually win it, is a matter left to the democratic process. There just needs to be more variety on the ballot.

If FIFA continues to exclude non-European based players for its “World” Player of the Year award then the name needs to be changed to the more accurate title of FIFA Player of the Year. The problem is not the manner in which the winner is chosen or the winner themselves. Its the pool of candidates from which the award winner is chosen, it excludes many players that are worthy of nomination. Until non-European based players are included into the pool of candidates, FIFA’s award is not a “World” award and can never claim to be.