“Messi’s favorite victim” – Real Madrid legend Iker Casillas rants on FIFA’s ‘UNFAIRNESS’ as Lionel Messi wins Best Award, fans get in heated debate

Messi secured the FIFA Best Men's Player of the Year award for the second successive year.

“Messi’s favorite victim” – Real Madrid legend Iker Casillas rants on FIFA’s ‘UNFAIRNESS’ as Lionel Messi wins Best Award, fans get in heated debate

Iker Casillas shared a tweet criticizing FIFA and its 'Best' awards for the year. (Image via X and Marca)

Real Madrid’s legendary goalkeeper, Iker Casillas recently shared a message on social media, alleging that the FIFA-organized ‘Best’ awards are biased. The former goalkeeper mocked Lionel Messi for winning the award for the Best Men’s Player of 2023, suggesting that the awards were given out unfairly.

The Best Footballer of the Year award went to Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar and 2022 World Cup winner. Messi and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland initially had the same number of votes, but Messi won in a tie-breaker based on votes from national team captains. Haaland and Kylian Mbappe secured the second and third positions. Despite Messi’s win raising questions, some believed Haaland’s 2023 treble performance made him a strong contender.

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Iker Casillas, the ex-Real Madrid goalkeeper, shared his views on socials. In his remarks, Messi’s win was indirectly criticized, raising doubts about the award’s fairness. Casillas expressed disappointment, highlighting the disheartening aspect of creating and then withdrawing prizes due to unfair practices. Additionally, he suggested renaming the award to ‘the Smile,’ suggesting other players were more deserving than Messi. Casillas firmly believed Messi hadn’t done enough in 2023 to merit the award.

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While the tweet was in Spanish, it translates to English as follows:

You create some nice prizes and you are taking them away by not doing things fairly. “The Smile” more like. Anyway, good night!

While Messi won the FIFA Best Men’s Player of the Year award, Barcelona women’s star Aitana Bonmati won the Women’s award, Man City manager Pep Guardiola won the Best Manager of the Year award and City star Ederson won the Best Goalkeeper of the Year award.

Fans react to Iker Casillas’ recent post criticizing FIFA’s Best Awards and Lionel Messi’s win

Netizens engaged in a heated debate over former Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas’ recent tweet criticizing the FIFA ‘Best’ awards for being biased and unfair. The former Real Madrid legend took a dig at Lionel Messi for winning the award.

FIFA Best Awards and Iker Casillas
Iker Casillas accused the FIFA awards of being biased and unfair. (Image via Marca and Bleacher Report)

Fans responded to the tweet which created a lot of controversy and took social media platforms by storm. A few fans showed support for the Spanish World Cup winner’s statement. On the other hand, a faction of fans expressed dissatisfaction with the legend’s statement.

Here are some of the fans’ reactions:

Meanwhile, fans also mocked the goalkeeper. They called him Messi’s ‘favorite victim’, while another fan pointed out that the former Porto star hated the Argentine, evident from his voting pattern in the 2012 FIFA ‘Best’ awards.

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