FIFA World Player Gala

FIFA World Player Gala Awards
Awarded forExcellence in association football team and individual achievements
LocationZürich, Switzerland
Presented byFIFA
First awarded8 December 1991 (1991-12-08)
Websiteweb.archive.org/web/20110728154133/http://www.fifa.com/classicfootball/awards/gala/archive/index.html

FIFA World Player Gala was an association football award show presented annually by the sport's governing body, FIFA, throughout 1991–2009.[1]

The first awarding ceremony was held on 8 December 1991 in Zürich, Switzerland.[2] The award show was superseded first by the FIFA Ballon d'Or during 2010-15, and since 2016 by The Best FIFA Football Awards. FIFA consider the three historic versions of its gala show as subversions of the same event, and thus celebrated its 30 years anniversary in 2021.[3][4] FIFA's historical statistics also list the awards in one overall list, comprising the records of all three gala show versions.[1]

  1. ^ a b "Fact sheet: FIFA Awards 1991-2015" (PDF). FIFA.com. 18 January 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 January 2016.
  2. ^ "Matthaus: It can only be Lewandowski". FIFA.com. 3 December 2020. Archived from the original on 30 June 2022.
  3. ^ "From World Player of the Year to The Best: 30 years of history". FIFA.com. 22 November 2021. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021.
  4. ^ "A brief history of The Best". FIFA.com. 23 November 2021. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021.