Did you know that the Golden Ball Award or the Adidas Golden Ball Award as it’s now known almost means the world to a football player? Well, it does. Players fight it out for their countries at the biggest stage of them all, and the player who contributes most to the success of his country is honored with the ‘Golden Ball Award. The 2006 Golden Ball Award was presented to France’s star footballer Zinedine Zidane for his addictive on field performances, the ‘head butt that made headlines’ notwithstanding.
The player who receives the award is selected by a high-profile committee comprising top FIFA officials and respected media persons. This is how the whole process of zeroing in on a Golden Ball ‘recipient’ gets on track – A short-list of ten exceptional players is put together by a FIFA technical committee. The names of the players are nominated to the list. This list is then presented to media representatives who may mostly have a great insight into everything that goes into making football the game that it is. The representatives then decide on the player who is the most worthy of getting the Adidas Golden Ball Award and then go on to decide on the players are worthy of the ‘Silver’ and ‘Bronze’ balls.
