Since its inaugural edition in 2000, 19 Laureus World Sportsman Awards winner trophies have been handed out.
Roger Federer (5), Novak Djokovic (3) and Rafael Nadal (1) have helped tennis top the sports list, Michael Schumacher (2) and Sebastian Vettel (1) were honoured from Formula One, Tiger Woods scooped two in golf and Usain Bolt has won four on his own for athletics. Lance Armstrong, whose 2003 gong was rescinded, made up the complete set if you were wondering.
What’s stark is that no footballers have lay claim to the top prize, and for that matter, cricketers. Football is arguably the world’s most popular game and cricket the most populous given its status in the subcontinent. But, they are two anomalies.
The latter hasn’t received a single male nomination for the top award in Laureus’ history while football has had 15 without yielding one winner.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have been nominated five times each with Andres Iniesta, Fabio Cannavaro, Kaka, Ronaldinho and Brazilian Ronaldo making single entries. Anyone of those would have been a worthy winner but have been overlooked.
Given both Ronaldo and Messi have a record five Ballon d’Or titles each, it’s baffling, especially with each of the Real Madrid and Barcelona stars enjoying their peak years during Laureus’ history.
According to the awards brief, the Laureus Nominations Panel comprising of the world’s leading sports editors, writers and broadcasters preside over the nominees and winners for various categories every year.
Indeed, Ronaldo was again a nominee in Monte Carlo on Tuesday night. But again, football missed out. Being cynical, could commercial and sponsorship values have a say in the process? Just leaving that there.
Looking at the history of men’s winners, the tendency is that individuals playing in team sports are overlooked in favour of individual sports, but you don’t really get much bigger than Ronaldo and Messi – and their great influences and consistency individually.
You could also make a case for Virat Kohli, too. Even Sachin Tendulkar. Amazingly, having trailed the archives, neither Ronaldo or Messi have attended the awards in person.
All three have god-like statuses that few can match, plus the trio are worldwide role models in their own right and champion the values of sportsmanship. On the women’s side, individual sports dominate and there have been no football winners, but soccer teams have been triumphant in the team category.
This piece is just merely pointing out an anomaly, but an interesting one at that. Laureus point out that they honour and recognise those across the sporting landscape. There’s no reason then that football should be exonerated.
At the end of the day, the work Laureus Sport for Good do to change and transform the lives of young people is remarkable and the most important thing, but this throws up an interesting dynamic.
Laureus’s focus is not about the elite whatsoever, and rightly so, with the annual evening being a celebration of 12 months of hard work at grassroots level and using those in the limelight to help champion one of sport’s most respected names.
