FIFA Player of the Century
FIFA Player of the Century was a one-off award created by FIFA to decide the greatest football player of the 20th century, announced at the annual FIFA World gala, held in Rome on 11 December 2000. Diego Maradona and Pelé were joint winners of the award.
Background
Since 1991, FIFA has had awards for FIFA World Player of the Year and they decided to bring in the year 2000 by conducting a public vote to decide the FIFA Player of the Century. This was to be decided by votes on their official website, their official magazine, and a grand jury. Maradona won the Internet-based poll by wide margins, garnering 53.6% of the votes against 18.53% for Pelé. Many observers complained that the Internet nature of the poll would have meant a skewed demographic of younger fans who would have seen Maradona play, but not Pelé.As a result, FIFA decided to add a second poll and appointed a "Football Family" committee composed of football journalists, officials, and coaches, and also a voting from the FIFA Magazine subscribers who voted Pelé the best player of the century with an overall 72.75% of the vote. Thus both were joint winners of the award.
Results
FIFA Internet vote
The results of FIFA's internet Poll were as follows: 27 players were voted.| Rank | Player | Nationality | Percentage |
| 1 | Diego Maradona | 53.60% | |
| 2 | Pelé | 18.53% | |
| 3 | Eusébio | 6.21% | |
| 4 | Roberto Baggio | 5.42% | |
| 5 | Romário | 1.69% | |
| 6 | Marco van Basten | 1.57% | |
| 7 | Ronaldo | 1.55% | |
| 8 | Franz Beckenbauer | 1.50% | |
| 9 | Zinedine Zidane | 1.34% | |
| 10 | Rivaldo | 1.19% | |
| 11 | Zico | 1.15% | |
| 12 | Garrincha | 1.08% | |
| 13 | Johan Cruyff | 0.87% | |
| 14 | Alfredo Di Stéfano | 0.68% | |
| 15 | Michel Platini | 0.58% | |
| 16 | Bobby Charlton | 0.39% | |
| 17 | Ferenc Puskás | 0.37% | |
| 18 | Lothar Matthäus | 0.37% | |
| 19 | Lev Yashin | 0.36% | |
| 20 | George Best | 0.32% | |
| 21 | Dino Zoff | 0.24% | |
| 22 | Didi | 0.22% | |
| 23 | Stanley Matthews | 0.18% | |
| 24 | George Weah | 0.18% | |
| 25 | Bobby Moore | 0.17% | |
| 26 | Just Fontaine | 0.13% | |
| 27 | Gerd Muller | 0.11% |
FIFA Magazine and Grand Jury vote
This part of the award was decided by the FIFA Magazine readers vote and the FIFA Grand Jury. Both the FIFA Magazine and the Football Committee's results were multiplied by 50% for the overall percentages of the two separate procedures.| Rank | Player | Nationality | Combined Percentage | |||||||||||||
| 1 | Pelé |  BrazilFIFA CommitteeThe Football Committee consisted of a group of experts who voted for the best player and the results were multiplied by 50%. Only Pele and Alfredo Di Stéfano received votes.
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