World Cup MVP awards spark a growing FIFA row
The man-of-the-match prize has a simple job. Reward the player who actually bent the game, the one who was most decisive, most influential, or just the best out there. A few weeks into the World Cup, that simple job looks anything but. One question keeps circling back. Are these awards really landing on the right players?
The deeper the tournament goes, the louder it gets. Social media, pundits, even voices inside the event itself are flagging calls that do not add up. The read is blunt: the biggest names keep getting the nod.
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When the superstars sweep the board
Lamine Yamal lit the fuse. Spain beat Austria, and the Barcelona teenager walked off with the MVP. Plenty of people blinked. He did not score. He did not even finish the match, hooked before the whistle, while Mikel Oyarzabal had buried a decisive brace.
Hours earlier, another verdict had already stung. Cristiano Ronaldo took the award after Portugal beat Croatia despite a flat display and an early exit. Croatia did not let it slide. Media and supporters there tore into a choice that clashed with what everyone had just watched.
Look at the wider tally and the eyebrows climb higher. Vinicius Junior has three MVPs in four games. Lionel Messi has two from three, level with Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Ronaldo. Yamal caps a roster of stars who keep collecting silverware.
None of that screams scandal on its own. These are some of the finest players alive. But a handful of the picks feed a suspicion that will not go away. Maybe the name on the shirt counts for more than the ninety minutes.
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The sponsor sitting in the middle of it
Then there is Michelob Ultra, the official backer of the man-of-the-match prize. The beer brand funds the trophy, handed over after each game by a media face or influencer.
For some watchers, that is no throwaway detail. If the marquee names keep lifting the award, the reach is planetary. Shots of Messi, Mbappe, Vinicius or Ronaldo clutching the prize fly across social feeds and hand the sponsor a gift no ad budget could buy.
Nothing proves the commercial partner picks the winners. The doubt rests on a run of disputed calls, and on the sheer gravitational pull of the players who keep receiving it.
FIFA says the vote is clean
Officially, the sponsor has no hand in it. The MVP is decided by FIFA’s Technical Study Group, a panel chaired by Arsene Wenger and stacked with former players and analysts posted at games across the tournament.
Their brief is to judge each match and name the player who shaped it most. On paper, independent. In practice, a handful of recent decisions have only fed the mistrust.
The stakes now stretch past a symbolic trophy. They touch the credibility of individual honours at the sport’s showpiece event.
Because once fans decide reputation is outrunning performance, the award loses whatever worth it still holds. And in a tournament where every tiny thing gets dissected, FIFA may need far more transparency to quiet the noise.
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