adminDiego Maradona has criticised Fifa for awarding Argentina’s Lionel Messi the Golden Ball award for the World Cup’s best player.
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. — Dailymail
derick.khumalo