FIFA recently released their men’s shortlists for the Ballon d’Or award of 2014, and to many astonished football fans, ex Liverpool player Luis Suárez was not among the named. Despite having scored 31 goals with Liverpool in the past season, being named best player in the Premier League, as well as top scorer in the South American section during the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign, Suárez did not make it onto the list of 23 best male players in the world. There are many speculations as to why this is so. Did the inclusion of Javier Mascherano mean FIFA already had their full of South Americans who moved from Liverpool to Barcelona? Was FIFA offended by his latest appearance in a Uruguayan TV advert, in which he causes trouble in an office environment? Or was it, as mirror.co.uk claims, because of the biting incident during the FIFA World Cup 2014 match against Italy after which he was banned from all football related activity for 4 months?

Luis Suárez wins Golden Boot Award, on pitch with two daughters. www.independent.co.uk

No matter what the reason, I believe it’s safe to assume that Suárez was not included in the shortlist due to something that had no relation to his extraordinary performance on the pitch. The fact that FC Barcelona recently signed Suárez for a five-year deal at a transfer fee of £75m (the third biggest in football history) shows that his skill is evidently worthy of recognition. With his exclusion from the best in the world, we can see a flaw in FIFA’s reward system. Evidently, this is an organization created for the love of the sport, and should reward its players based on their performance rather than political issues. But instead of providing recognition where recognition is due, FIFA decides to leave him out from the list of elites and upset football fans around the world.