FIFA deleted a couple of tweets that indirectly mocked Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo after Lionel Messi‘s Argentina won the FIFA World Cup 2022 on Sunday.

With the victory, Messi took home the only major football title that was missing in his trophy cabinet. It led to speculations on the GOAT debate having ended, with FIFA tweeting to that effect.

FIFA also shared a picture of Ronaldo with a thumbs up and asked users whether they enjoyed the tournament or not. With the tournament having been considered Messi’s magnum opus with Argentina winning the cup and Ronaldo being a mere shadow of his former self in it( Portugal exited in quarter-finals), the post was widely perceived as sarcastic.

After having received severe criticism for the tweets by a galaxy of Ronaldo fans, FIFA was forced to plead halt by deleting the posts.

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Just like in other sports, the GOAT (greatest of all time) debate in football involving Messi and Ronaldo has engaged their fans for many years. While Ronaldo has scored 819 career goals (club+ international) in 1145 matches at an average of 0.72 per match, Messi has a marginally higher average of 0.78, having scored 791 goals in 1014 matches.

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The Argentine star also has won football’s biggest individual award, Ballon d’Or for a record seven times, two more than Ronaldo’s five. With Messi having finally won the World Cup and Ronaldo never having played a final, statistics have prompted most fans and observers to chose the Paris Saint-Germain star over the Portuguese as the best player of the generation. 

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Despite the facts and figures pointing at such a conclusion and Messi likely to be a favourite by objective parameters, FIFA has been slammed for partaking in a subjective assessment despite being the international governing body of the game. It is ultimately subjective as a lot of other factors like winnability, contribution to team’s success and so on can also be subjective while number of goals might not in all cases highlight the level of opposition.

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GOAT discussions, fun and juicy when limited to enthusiastic fans, run the risk of reducing the stature of official bodies as even the slightest tinge of partisanship will scar their reputation.