FIFA Drops Ball in Mess Between Pele, Maradona

This is the story of two forces and one farce.

On one hand there is Pele, widely regarded as the greatest soccer player of all time. Now 60, the Brazilian’s place in the sporting pantheon is secure.

On the other there is Diego Armando Maradona, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. Now 40, the Argentine’s place in soccer history is equally well established.

Those are the two forces, each one backed vociferously by his respective countrymen, while splitting the rest of the world’s vote.

Now, enter the farce, in the form of FIFA, world soccer’s all-powerful but often bumbling governing body. In one of its less-enlightened moments, FIFA thought it would be a good idea to end the century by having voters worldwide select a player of the century.

That’s when things started to go wrong.

The election was held in October and November via the Internet, with fans choosing from among 27 candidates listed on FIFA’s web site. A couple of weeks ago, word leaked in Spain that Maradona was going to win.

The result was one of confusion as Brazil and Argentina began a verbal trashing match and FIFA scrambled to change the rules of the game after it had been played.

Argentine fans and media gloated, while Brazilian fans and media were incensed.

“Diego is already celebrating and choosing the clothes he will use [at Monday’s award ceremony],” reported the Argentine sports daily Ole. “Pele and all of Brazil are crying because Maradona won the election.”

In Brazil, pundits said the election had been rigged. They claimed that because the voting was web-based, it was dominated by younger voters who had not seen Pele play. Also, they claimed, Argentina’s soccer federation had mounted a campaign on Maradona’s behalf while Brazil’s federation had not supported Pele, who has an ongoing feud with its former president, Joao Havelange, and its current president, Ricardo Texeira, Havelange’s son-in-law.

There are a few players who might have challenged either candidate, players such as Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, Northern Ireland’s George Best, Hungary’s Ferenc Puskas, England’s Stanley Matthews, Argentina’s Alfredo di Stefano and the Netherlands’ Johan Cruyff, to name a few.

But the World Cup feats of Pele and Maradona set them apart as much as their respective individual skills.

Pele won the World Cup in Sweden in 1958 as a 17-year-old phenomenon. He was on Brazil’s winning team in Chile in 1962, although injured; was hacked down and injured again in a losing 1966 effort in England, and led the superb 1970 team to victory in Mexico.

So what, said Maradona.

“He shone in Mexico, but he received the ball, could turn around with no problems and then choose,” Maradona said. “[Defenders] didn’t give me a centimeter.”

Maradona’s World Cup exploits included a losing effort in Spain in 1982, when he was red-carded in a game against Italy; a brilliant winning performance in Mexico in 1986, even though his deliberate “hand of God” goal against England went unpunished; a courageous 1990 World Cup in Italy, where Argentina lost to the Beckenbauer-coached German team in the final and Maradona blamed the “FIFA mafia,” and a sad end in the USA ’94 World Cup when he was banned after failing a drug test.

Still, Maradona said his club feats should be taken into account. He played for Boca Juniors in Argentina, Barcelona in Spain and Napoli in Italy. Pele’s 20-year career was spent with Santos of Brazil, apart from three seasons with the New York Cosmos of the old North American Soccer League.

“[Voters] are judging me for the 12 years I played in Europe, something Pele did not do,” Maradona said. “Let’s be serious: Don’t compare me with him any more.”

Exactly, said Pele, don’t compare him with Maradona, either.

In an interview with Brazil’s Globo TV network, the Brazilian suggested that Maradona barely deserved to be ranked in the top 10, behind not one but five Brazilians.

“Socrates, Rivelino, Romario, Tostao . . . I think that if Maradona wants to speak with Pele, he has to speak to them first,” Pele told Globo. “After speaking with them, Maradona should ask permission of Di Stefano or [another Argentine star Jose Manuel] Moreno.”

A personal opinion is that the top five, in order, should be Pele, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Matthews and Di Stefano, with Maradona ranking somewhere in the second five.

In any event, FIFA, worried that Maradona, a convicted drug user and admitted cocaine addict now undergoing treatment in Cuba, would be a poor choice as its player of the century, clumsily tried some damage control.

FIFA’s web site last week stated that the award would honor “the player of the decade” rather than of the century.

Maradona erupted.

“I’ve heard that the Brazilians are lobbying and that FIFA are seeing what they can do so that the prize is split with Pele,” Maradona told Ole. “I’ve told my agent to tell that them if they do this, I’m not going.

“If the people voted for me, then the prize is for me. They can’t start inventing ways of taking it away from me. This is the most important prize I have, alongside a cap that Fidel Castro gave me.”

FIFA again backtracked. A spokesman said the player of the decade phrase had been a typographical error on its web site and should have said “player of the decades.”

A thin, but barely plausible, explanation. Why not just say player of the century?

On Sunday, FIFA again changed the rules. Instead of one player of the century, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said, there would be two--one voted on by fans on the Internet and one selected by a poll of unnamed FIFA officials, national team coaches and journalists.

And so it came about Monday night, at a gala ceremony in Rome, that Pele and Maradona shared the same stage--each convinced he had won.

In the Internet vote, Maradona gained 53.6% to Pele’s 18.5%.

In FIFA’s hastily organized poll, however, Pele finished with 72.75%, ahead of Di Stefano with 9.75% and Maradona with 6%.

The ceremony did not pass without incident.

Maradona accepted his award and then walked out before Pele got up on the stage. The snub came after Pele had earlier delivered a verbal shot at Maradona.

“We’re not great friends, but I admire him,” Pele said. “If he thinks he’s the best player of the century, that’s his problem.”