Spanish club Barcelona announced that their players would not be attending the FIFA Best Awards ceremony as they were preparing for an ‘important’ second leg game Cup match against Athletic Bilbao.
This ultimately meant that Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Gerard Pique and other Barcelona teammates were absent from the ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland.
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However, football legend Diego Maradona and former Brazil defender Roberto Carlos were not having it, calling out Messi and Barcelona.
According to them, the club and players should have respected FIFA and showed up for the award ceremony.
For Diego Maradona, ‘I’m disappointed with Messi, from watching television at home you cannot fight anything or anyone – here you can fight.’
The former Argentina coach added, ‘I do not know why Barcelona did not come to such an important event. They have priorities and the priority was for Leo not to come. I think coming here [Zurich] they could fight more than they would in Barcelona.’
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Roberto Carlos on his part said, ‘I am sad and disappointed that Leo and his teammates have not come. They have many great footballers and all of us would have liked to see them attend.We all wanted to see Messi, the other big players and the coach of Barcelona here. It’s a FIFA prize. FIFA is the highest authority in football. So, everyone should be here.’
Messi won the FIFA World Player of the Year and Ballon d’Or awards in 2009, before both award organisers merged to form the FIFA Ballon d’Or, which Messi won its first three editions from 2010 as well as in 2015.
This year however, the 29-year-old has seen long-term rival Cristiano Ronaldo pick up the major individual accolades, including the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Best Player awards.
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