Fans to Choose Man of the Match at World Cup 2010. Is This a Good Thing?

March 26th, 2010 | by: Daryl |

vote Bit of interesting World Cup news today. For the first time in history the man of the match award for each World Cup game will be chosen by fans, instead of by FIFA’s technical committee. My initial reaction was “Hooray! Power to the People!”, because it’s always good when we the fans have a voice. Basically fans around the world will be able to register their choice for man of the match in each game via text message and/or online voting. Like I said, power to the people.

Except after a bit of pondering (I’m a possible ponderholic) I’m not so sure. FIFA’s technical committee is made up of former players, coaches and other football experts from around the world. The current chairman is Temarii Reynald from Tahiti, who’s also current chairman of the Oceania football confederation for example. As such, I’m assuming the committee took its role very seriously, and chose each man of the match based on the performances they just witnessed. Part of me worries that fans may not take this quite so seriously.

Once a decision like this is opened up to the global public, you invite all kinds of other external factors. Fans have favourites that they’ll be biased towards, and so someone like Leo Messi (who’s impossible not to love right now) could conceivably win an online vote for a half-decent albiceleste performance, even if someone less glamorous – let’s say Walter Samuel – has had a flawless game at the back for Argentina. On the flipside, some players have no chance. Does anyone see Thierry Henry winning any popularity contests in South Africa? He’d have to score 50 goals in one game to win the vote.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s something to the wisdom of crowds idea that the majority will usually make the right decision. I hope the world works like that. I really do.

What I’m 99% certain of is that FIFA didn’t consider any of the above when switching the man of the match award to a public vote. Because it isn’t just the man of the match award we’re talking about, it’s actually the YourNameHere Man of the Match Award, and has been since 2006. What better way to have the sponsors name repeated multiple times throughout a game than by having commentators and on screen graphics that remind people: “Don’t forget to vote for your Budweiser Man of the Match”? So maybe it’s not power to the people. Maybe it’s power to the sponsors instead.

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Jose

Yeah, this is going to turn out to be very unexciting… Portugal might slump 0-0 to North Korea on some heroic, game-of-a-lifetime from the NK keeper, but it’ll still be “OMG, CRonaldo, LOLZ!!”
http://www.malawi.worldcupblog.org sscouser

Speaking of Budweiser, what’s the update on this:

Welcome to Bud House: Where 32 Fans Will Live Together for World Cup 2010
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/welcome-to-bud-house-where-32-fans-will-live-together-for-world-cup-2010.html

As for Man of the match being voted by the fans, I agree with you that it invites all kinds of other external factors. Some fans may vote for player A because the player and the fan(s) are from the same country/continent. Some may vote for a player because he plays for a club that they support. Bottom line is that fans will be very subjective. American Idol?

However, that doesn’t mean that FIFA Technical Committee members were not subjective. What’s up Kanye?
Helge

Haha, perfect example, Jose.

This reminds me of the newly awarded FIFA Goal of the Year which has also been voted by the fans. Guess who won? CR with a certainly good, but not that utterly special goal against Porto. It was a strong strike, but seriously, compared to other nominees I would have rated it on 4th-5th place…
http://tuddyms.com Vlad

I think Fifa is doing this because of the money they might get from the text message voting, but nonetheless I’m not gonna vote badly…
Marco

No, please not fans. Otherwise the “Messicracy” will win :( too many kids love his idol (if you see his face, Messi still looks like a kid, he’s kids idol)
Brad

Daryl,

You are 100% correct in thinking that the motivation behind the change is towards the interest of the sponsors. The votes always cost money (probably 99 American cents, maybe as much as 2 quid).

How do I know this? I own a company which selects award recipients based on statistics, and I have received several requests from telecommunication companies hoping to implement fan votes (they call it their own “American Idol” platform). Typically, then there is revenue sharing (usually split 50-50).

In this case, the sponsor, FIFA, and the telecommunications company are each taking a percentage of the revenue generated by the fans. So, there is really no reason to expect the player of the match honor to have any scientific validity.
coconut

Thanks for the insight, Brad.
fab

messi will probably win because he is the best player on earth right now

not cause he is a teen idol
Dareen

what a horrible idea underdogs dont get a chance
Marco

@fab

With Albiceleste camiseta Messi looks like a “Jonas Gutierrez” or a “Jose Sosa”: a common player. He still needs to show us that he’s an Argentina NT star, in fact since now he didn’t do it.

It can sound bad, but with NT shirt was more decisive a normal player like Marcos Senna (Spain) than “the best player on earth right now”.

And I hate kids loving him, like I hate kids love CRonaldo. Like someone already said if Messi or Cronaldo will do a trick they’ll have a ton of votes, rather than a common Mascherano or Moutinho who can run 90/90 but have zero votes. This is my opinion, respect for yours
http://soccerlimeyinamerica.com SoccerLimey

No decision ever made by FIFA in my world ever has the fan at the top of it’s concerns. It’s definitely a sponsorship driven decision which is OK as long as you name the award “Fan’s Man of the Match” and not something that christens the winner as the best player on the field.

If the Technical Committee (what a joke that is !)had more ex-players and coaches, instead of the usual majority of gormless hangers-on with a light sprinkling of real knowledgeable people, I think the average fan would recognise it’s value.

Get ready for an avalanche of Kaka, Ronaldo, Messi and Rooney awards folks.
Bense

I believe that might be a crappy idea. A neutral panel of experts is much more exact on this than a bunch of fanboys.
John

NO ! No-one in the correct state of mind would do this. OK, let’s say Rooney misses a penalty, awarded a yellow card, and handballed the ball . Then, tons of Man Utd fans and England fans rate him as the MOTD . Not that i don’t like England, i am just giving an example. FORZA ITALY!!! (not singapore)
Rachel

Imagine that Casillas or Buffon saves two penalties from Lampard who is having an otherwise mediocre game, and the same keeper makes several other great saves in that game. Under this daft fan-voting idea, Lampard would win man of the match.
http://farmvillefurniture.net/ how to play farmville

I think its a great idea for the all the fans in the world to make this decision.I will look forward for more information.
jon

I think it’s a good idea as long as there are “two” man of the match. one that the committee voted on and one that the fans voted on.
It would also be better if the committee voted man of the match is considered the “OFFICIAL” man of the match.