The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award given annually to the male and female player who were thought to be the best in the world, based on votes by coaches and captains of international teams. In a voting system based on positional voting, each coach had three votes, worth five points, three points and one point, and the winners were ordered based on total number of points.

The award started in 1991 for men and 2001 for women. During the award's duration, European-based Brazilian players dominated the male awards, winning 8 out of 18 editions of the prize, far ahead of the second country France, which won it three times.

The award's youngest winner, male or female, was Ronaldo, who won at the age of 20 in 1996. He won it again in 1997 and 2002. Marta is the only player to win it five times in a row; Birgit Prinz won three times in a row, while Ronaldo, Mia Hamm and Ronaldinho won twice in a row. Marta is the only five-time winner, while Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, and Prinz have won the award three times. The oldest winner is Fabio Cannavaro who won in 2006 at age 33. The oldest female winner is Hamm, who won in 2002 at age 30, and the youngest female winner is Marta, who won in 2006 at age 20 (seven months older than Ronaldo in 1996).

Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year. In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. The awards with the "player of the year" phrasing include these.

In association football, this award is held on both an international and national level.

In American basketball, several such awards are given:

In baseball, publications sometimes issue awards with this name:

In lacrosse, two awards are given with this name, the Major League Lacrosse Offensive player of the Year Award and the Major League Lacrosse Defensive player of the Year Award.

In cricket, awards for the leading international player are the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World and the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.

In ice hockey, in the United Kingdom the Player of the Year Trophy is awarded by Ice Hockey Journalists UK.

Lionel Andrés Messi (Spanish pronunciation: [ljoˈnel anˈdɾes ˈmesi], born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine footballer who plays in La Liga for FC Barcelona and is the captain of the Argentina national team, mainly as a forward.

By the age of 21, Messi had received Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations. The following year in 2009 he won both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year, and won the inaugural FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 and 2011. He also won the 2010–11 UEFA Best Player in Europe Award. Messi is the fourth football player to win three Ballons d'Or, after Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten and the second player to win three consecutive Ballons d'Or, after Michel Platini. His playing style and small stature have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi as his "successor".

Messi has won five La Liga titles and three Champions League titles. In 2012, Messi made UEFA Champions League history by becoming the first player to score five goals in one match, in a 7–1 win against Bayer Leverkusen. With two goals in the next round against A.C. Milan, he matched José Altafini's record of 14 goals in a single UEFA Champions League/European Cup season. He also became the first player to top-score in four successive European Champion Clubs' Cup campaigns. He set the world record for most goals scored in a season during the 2011–12 season, with 73 goals.