 Tonight, two individuals will be crowned the greatest male and female players on the planet. Lionel Messi And the winner is... Aitana Bonmati Alright, we're switching now to football. The best FIFA football award ceremony for 2023 was held on Monday in London. Lionel Messi has been crowned FIFA best men's play of the year for 2023, the second consecutive year and third time overall he's securing the honour. Messi won ahead of Manchester City and Norway striker Erling Hallen. They both tallied 48 votes but were separated by the number of first-choice votes received from national team captains. PSG and French striker Kylian Mbappe finished third with 35 points. Aitana Bonmati walked away with the women's award after a stellar 2023 where she won the World Cup with Spain and the Trouble with Barcelona. Bonmati with 52 points won ahead of Colombia's Linda Caicedo, 40 points and country woman Jennifer Hermoso with 36 points. Let's take a look after other winners on the night. We had the best FIFA women's players. We told you Aitana Bonmati, the best FIFA men's player. You know the name Lionel Messi. What about the best FIFA women's goalkeeper, Mary Erbs? And the best FIFA men's goalkeeper, Edison from Manchester City. Then we had the best FIFA women's coach, Serena Wegman. FIFA men's coach, Pep Guardiola. Then we had the Puskas award, going to Guéherme Madruga, the FIFA special award to Marta, the fair play award to Brazil, men's national team and the FIFA final award to Hugo Daniel Iniguez. So joining us now to discuss the FIFA best winners is our international football correspondent, Simon Evans. Good afternoon Simon. How are you? Good afternoon Mariah. Very well. Thank you. All right. So we're talking FIFA awards and I feel as if the name Lionel Messi is no stranger than this. He has won it so many times, Simon. A lot of people feeling as if Erling Halland was robbed. I think he was. I mean, I think Messi's won this plenty of times. I don't think he would have been upset and I don't think many people would have argued strongly. Fans, if a guy like Erling Halland who scored an incredible rate in the Champions League and the Premier League, won the treble, was the outstanding footballer over this past 12 months of 2023. Messi's greatness is not in dispute. That's not what people were voting for. It was 2023 and the way his time ended at Paris Saint-Germain and then, okay, he had some good games with Inter-Miami and some good games with the Argentine national team. But really, he wasn't the best player of 2023 and I think he's got this award. Because of his reputation, because of the fact that he's the GOAT and people always want to respect that. Right. You say that because of his reputation, but there's a timeline, Simon, and I think that timeline has, of course, created a lot of discussion and a lot of controversy. So there's a timeline from which this award is presented based on, of course, your performances. Lionel Messi won the World Cup, but does it fall into the timeline and does the World Cup trump a treble that Erling Hallen has walked away with? Yeah, I've seen some debate about this. I'm not exactly sure what FIFA's criteria was because it's the calendar year 2023, so it doesn't because it was December 2022, but it does feel like they took that into account. Now, whether that was officially the case or not, I can't actually be sure about that. Look, a World Cup does trump lots of things, and you can see on the women's side with Bon Mati being rewarded as Spain, when the women's World Cup, that that was a factor. But still, over the whole year, I don't think that's Trump's side. I think Messi's won so many awards, hasn't he? Ballon d'Ors and FIFA Bests, him and Ronaldo shared it between them for as long as most of us can remember, it seems. And Harland was so good this year. He really was. I mean, the impact he made in the Premier League, which is the best league in the world, the impact he had on the Champions League, not many teams can go and win a treble. It doesn't happen very often at all. And that was recognised in the team that FIFA put together, the FIFA Best Team, which I think had six Manchester City players in it. But I still think it should have gone to Harland this time. And that's no disrespect to Messi. I'm not one of these people. I've seen some people saying, how can you give it to an MLS player? I don't think MLS is that bad. I think Messi would use some great stuff here in the summer, which I was lucky to witness, but really not this year. It shouldn't have been him. Yeah, Simon, on a point of clarification, I saw some dates published on this award that it spanned the period December 19, 2022 to the 23rd of August 2023, which means that it would not include the World Cup success, which to me would have been the only way that we could accept Messi qualifying to be the FIFA Best Player Award winner. And based on the timeline, it doesn't even include much of what he did with Miami FC, because he debuted for them in July. And this award closes off in August. So I guess it's the PSG stuff that he did. But I agree with you 100% that Messi doesn't deserve this award. And I'm a Messi fan. And I can say that without fear of controversy or anything. I just think that this wasn't Messi's award. He didn't have that kind of year. Having said that, though, on the Best 11 squad, which we had a discussion over this in our office yesterday, I don't have a difficulty with him being in the Best 11. Yeah, that's a slightly different one, isn't it, the Best 11? And there's a little bit of a sort of fantasy football element about it, about putting together an imaginary team with great players. And how could you really argue about Messi being in that? I mean, he didn't have a good end to his time at Paris Saint-Germain. Let's not forget he was being booed off the field at the end, which wasn't totally about his performances. There were lots of other things that played there. But he wasn't a great time on the field for him at Paris Saint-Germain. What he did in Miami was electrify in that MLS Leagues Cup when he played against the Mexican team Cruz Azul and scored the free kick in the final minute on his debut and led into Miami all the way through that mini tournament to win it. It was thrilling, it was exciting, and we saw Messi at his best. We really did see that for a brief window, like a month before then, the injuries problems and things caught up with him a little bit. So I wouldn't argue ever about having Messi in anyone's greatest 11, even if on 2023 you could argue that there should have been perhaps been other players who married him more. But it's the big one that he shouldn't have got, really. And the fact that he didn't go to London suggests, I don't know, maybe I don't want to put words into his mouth, but I do feel that someone like Messi, who's quite a humble guy in a lot of ways, I think he would have been slightly embarrassed to have got that award, to be honest. Yeah, for sure, and I just want to go back a little bit, Simon, to hold this award is voted on. It is voted on by a mix of national team managers and captains, journalists and fans, and the voting takes place on FIFA's website with each counting for 25%. Could the issue here be the waiting that is given to, I guess, groups like fans, and I know we are journalists, but maybe even journalists and even some national team managers and captains who may well be voting for the player that they think is the best in the world as a general rule rather than the player who was the best in the world in a specific period? Because, as you've all pointed out, looking at the numbers from the period the 19th of December 2022, which was right after the World Cup to August 2020-23, there is no way that Lionel Messi should have trumped Erling Haaland for this award. Yeah, I think he was tied on the overall voting, which I thought... Yeah, 48. And the fan element you would think would weigh heavily in Messi's favour. I mean, if you look at social media and see how many Messi fans there are out there who are very, very active and would have all logged on and voted for him, so I'm sure that helped him a lot. But I think it is a reputation thing, and when people find out who you voted for, I think maybe some people... I saw, for example, Christian Pulisic, the USA captain, voted for Messi, and you think, oh, well, is there a little bit of players not wanting to be seen to disrespect the gold? Is that part of it? And I think it could well be. There's certainly not a giant lobby for Norwegian players out there online or Manchester City ones, despite the success, they don't have that huge fan base that Barcelona and Argentina and Messi personally has. So I think lots of things would have come into play, but normally, you sort of think these things, it doesn't really matter that much, but this just seemed to have devalued it a little bit, I think, this year. Yeah, in third or second, Simon, doesn't it bring the credibility of the award into question, though, when you have a decision like this, at least from where we sit, that is glaringly incorrect? Yeah, I think, like I said, I think it devalues this award a little bit in this year, and I think they'll have to get it right next time, otherwise, people aren't going to take it seriously. I mean, you can look at some other things as well. The women's team overly dominated by England players in the best one, far too many Manchester City players in the men's best 11 as well. Weird things, Edison, the best goalkeeper in the world, he wins that award, but they're not the best goalkeeper in the best team of the year, so there's lots of things to question about this, but I guess it's just a bit of fun at the end of the day. Yeah, Simon, well, of course, a bit of fun. We enjoyed talking to you, most definitely, and we'll chat with you again very, very soon. Thank you so much for your time. Cheers, all the best. Thank you, Simon Evans there, our football correspondent on that note. We're going to take a quick break and come right back.