To deem the goalscoring exploits of players in smaller top-flight leagues as less of an achievement is wrong. The Golden Shoe should be made available in all sizes
With the Ballon d'Or sat safely on his mantelpiece, Cristiano Ronaldo's next personal goal will be putting the European Golden Shoe up there with it – the neat little trophy handed out to the most prolific player in a top-flight league in Europe.
Lionel Messi has won it three times, Ronaldo twice. So the Real Madrid forward hardly needs any added motivation to outshoot Luis Suárez, who is currently leading on 23 goals, one more than Ronaldo. But a quick glance down this year's live list shows that the leading goalscorer is in fact Nerijus Valskis, the Lithuanian who has plundered 27 goals from midfield for FK Suduva and should be the clubhouse leader given that his league's season is already done and dusted. But due to the award's weighting system his goals earn only one point each, whereas Ronaldo's – and anyone else playing in what is deemed an elite league by Uefa's coefficient rankings, currently those ranked first to eighth – count double.
This has been the case since 1996-97, since when only five times out of 17 has the winner been the player who has amassed the most goals instead of points. Only twice, in 2000-01 when Celtic's Henrik Larsson scored 35 goals at 1.5 points each (the Scottish top flight was, and still is, deemed an intermediate league, those ranked 9th-21st) and in 2001-02, when Mario Jardel scored 42 goals for Sporting with the same disadvantage, has a player hampered by weighting won the award.
Valksis doesn't feel that he should be in the running for the award. He is happy to accept that A Lyga goals are only half as important as those in elite top flights as far as the Golden Shoe's rules are concerned. "I think it's fair to say that the current system is good," he says. "There is a big difference in terms of playing level between the leagues, so you have to somehow separate the top leagues. It wouldn't be fair if goals scored in weaker championships were counted equally as the goals of Luis Suárez. From my point of view, it would be a controversial decision to make those evaluations equivalent. I think Suárez would be dismayed and condemned to hear about this shift! However, winning the European Golden Shoe is not a utopia for me. Becoming a better player could lead me to better results."
Some would argue that a quick scan through the list of previous winners – Messi, Ronaldo, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Francesco Totti et al – proves Valskis right with the award going to Europe's best forward in those seasons. But surely that's not the point. Other awards, such as the Ballon d'Or and Uefa's Best Player in Europe title, usually reward Europe's best-performing player. This award should simply honour the player who has scored the most league goals, and if that person happens to be a League of Wales striker, then great.
In 2001-02, Marc Lloyd Williams scored 47 goals in a 34-game season for Bangor City, who finished third in the League of Wales. But that is the only time a player has come anywhere near the total of 50 league goals scored by Messi for Barcelona in 2011-12. Williams lost out on the Golden Shoe to Sporting's Jardel and would have needed an improbable tally of 64 goals to claim the prize. Even now, 12 years later, it still rankles.
"I was very disappointed," he says. "Losing out to a Brazil international like Mario Jardel isn't bad but every player plays to their level. Ronaldo meets international defenders each week – and I'm not saying in my league we encountered players like that – but they were still of similar quality to the attackers. The weighting system is unfair. It discriminates against the lower-ranked leagues.
"There have been four occasions where the top goalscorer of the League of Wales has missed out. Tony Bird [1996-97], Rhys Griffiths [2007-08] and myself on two occasions. No one moans about the standard when Messi picks up the award scoring 50 and 46 goals but when I should have twice won it, it was on the basis of 'the League of Wales is of a poor standard, that's why you can score so many goals'; as is reflected in the weighting system. But there hasn't been the questioning of the standard of La Liga over the past two seasons.
"There was a £10,000 prize when I was in the running, which would have made a huge difference to my life. The league still got a lot of publicity, but a trip to Monaco at the end of the season and some recognition at the end of it would have been nice." Marc got neither.
He continued to be a handy striker at Southport, Aberystwyth, Total Network Solutions (where he top-scored in Europe again but was denied once more by the points system) and various other non-league clubs. But he stayed at about the same level, never making the step up to a bigger league because he belonged, more or less, where he was.
To deem the goalscoring exploits of players in smaller top-flight leagues as less of an achievement robs them of a chance of rare notoriety and personal glory. It's not often that a player chooses to ply their trade in a league that is beneath them. Well, unless they are given a wheelbarrow of cash to be a showpony in a nouveau riche league in a far flung land. But it is rare in Europe. And in any case, since TV money and oligarchs have enabled a select number of clubs in Europe's leading leagues to get disproportionately wealthy in recent years, an argument could be made that those leagues – particularly La Liga, where Real Madrid and Barcelona negotiate their own TV deals – are uncompetitive in a way that smaller ones aren't. Ronaldo and Messi have had a stranglehold on the award for the past three seasons and would have won it without the weighting system. So a bit of competition from a plucky Welshman or Lithuanian would surely be welcome.
Many of the lower-ranked leagues are comprised of fewer teams too. The Lithuanian top flight has nine teams who play 32 games a season. That Valskis scored 27 goals at the fourth-placed club in so few games is a stunning achievement. If anything, totting up a player's goals-per-game ratio would be a fairer way of levelling the current competition but even that would seem to devalue an award that should be about pure weight of goals. Instead, it's about weighting.
"I would have had a better chance of getting an award in the Queen's honours list than these people recognising my achievements," says Williams. "Goalscoring is an art no matter what standard you play at. In my opinion they need to have a trophy for each weighting category or revert back to the old system. But I'm sure sponsors want a nice photo with a winner who is a famous footballer and not someone they haven't heard of, so they probably have something to say on how the competition is structured."
Perhaps he's right. And if so, it's wrong. As it stands any one of Suárez, Ronaldo and Diego Costa look like they will finish the season on a higher tally than Valskis, meaning the eventual winner would be Europe's top goalscorer instead of points scorer. And while that in itself is a good thing, meaning that for the fourth season no player from a smaller league has been muscled out of the picture, it is evidence that the current system is most definitely flawed. Weighting should be given the boot. And the Golden Shoe should be made available in all sizes.
Additional reporting by the Lithuanian football journalist Justas Kontrimas. Follow him here on Twitter. Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
With the Ballon d'Or sat safely on his mantelpiece, Cristiano Ronaldo's next personal goal will be putting the European Golden Shoe up there with it – the neat little trophy handed out to the most prolific player in a top-flight league in Europe.
Lionel Messi has won it three times, Ronaldo twice. So the Real Madrid forward hardly needs any added motivation to outshoot Luis Suárez, who is currently leading on 23 goals, one more than Ronaldo. But a quick glance down this year's live list shows that the leading goalscorer is in fact Nerijus Valskis, the Lithuanian who has plundered 27 goals from midfield for FK Suduva and should be the clubhouse leader given that his league's season is already done and dusted. But due to the award's weighting system his goals earn only one point each, whereas Ronaldo's – and anyone else playing in what is deemed an elite league by Uefa's coefficient rankings, currently those ranked first to eighth – count double.
This has been the case since 1996-97, since when only five times out of 17 has the winner been the player who has amassed the most goals instead of points. Only twice, in 2000-01 when Celtic's Henrik Larsson scored 35 goals at 1.5 points each (the Scottish top flight was, and still is, deemed an intermediate league, those ranked 9th-21st) and in 2001-02, when Mario Jardel scored 42 goals for Sporting with the same disadvantage, has a player hampered by weighting won the award.
Valksis doesn't feel that he should be in the running for the award. He is happy to accept that A Lyga goals are only half as important as those in elite top flights as far as the Golden Shoe's rules are concerned. "I think it's fair to say that the current system is good," he says. "There is a big difference in terms of playing level between the leagues, so you have to somehow separate the top leagues. It wouldn't be fair if goals scored in weaker championships were counted equally as the goals of Luis Suárez. From my point of view, it would be a controversial decision to make those evaluations equivalent. I think Suárez would be dismayed and condemned to hear about this shift! However, winning the European Golden Shoe is not a utopia for me. Becoming a better player could lead me to better results."
Some would argue that a quick scan through the list of previous winners – Messi, Ronaldo, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Francesco Totti et al – proves Valskis right with the award going to Europe's best forward in those seasons. But surely that's not the point. Other awards, such as the Ballon d'Or and Uefa's Best Player in Europe title, usually reward Europe's best-performing player. This award should simply honour the player who has scored the most league goals, and if that person happens to be a League of Wales striker, then great.
In 2001-02, Marc Lloyd Williams scored 47 goals in a 34-game season for Bangor City, who finished third in the League of Wales. But that is the only time a player has come anywhere near the total of 50 league goals scored by Messi for Barcelona in 2011-12. Williams lost out on the Golden Shoe to Sporting's Jardel and would have needed an improbable tally of 64 goals to claim the prize. Even now, 12 years later, it still rankles.
"I was very disappointed," he says. "Losing out to a Brazil international like Mario Jardel isn't bad but every player plays to their level. Ronaldo meets international defenders each week – and I'm not saying in my league we encountered players like that – but they were still of similar quality to the attackers. The weighting system is unfair. It discriminates against the lower-ranked leagues.
"There have been four occasions where the top goalscorer of the League of Wales has missed out. Tony Bird [1996-97], Rhys Griffiths [2007-08] and myself on two occasions. No one moans about the standard when Messi picks up the award scoring 50 and 46 goals but when I should have twice won it, it was on the basis of 'the League of Wales is of a poor standard, that's why you can score so many goals'; as is reflected in the weighting system. But there hasn't been the questioning of the standard of La Liga over the past two seasons.
"There was a £10,000 prize when I was in the running, which would have made a huge difference to my life. The league still got a lot of publicity, but a trip to Monaco at the end of the season and some recognition at the end of it would have been nice." Marc got neither.
He continued to be a handy striker at Southport, Aberystwyth, Total Network Solutions (where he top-scored in Europe again but was denied once more by the points system) and various other non-league clubs. But he stayed at about the same level, never making the step up to a bigger league because he belonged, more or less, where he was.
To deem the goalscoring exploits of players in smaller top-flight leagues as less of an achievement robs them of a chance of rare notoriety and personal glory. It's not often that a player chooses to ply their trade in a league that is beneath them. Well, unless they are given a wheelbarrow of cash to be a showpony in a nouveau riche league in a far flung land. But it is rare in Europe. And in any case, since TV money and oligarchs have enabled a select number of clubs in Europe's leading leagues to get disproportionately wealthy in recent years, an argument could be made that those leagues – particularly La Liga, where Real Madrid and Barcelona negotiate their own TV deals – are uncompetitive in a way that smaller ones aren't. Ronaldo and Messi have had a stranglehold on the award for the past three seasons and would have won it without the weighting system. So a bit of competition from a plucky Welshman or Lithuanian would surely be welcome.
Many of the lower-ranked leagues are comprised of fewer teams too. The Lithuanian top flight has nine teams who play 32 games a season. That Valskis scored 27 goals at the fourth-placed club in so few games is a stunning achievement. If anything, totting up a player's goals-per-game ratio would be a fairer way of levelling the current competition but even that would seem to devalue an award that should be about pure weight of goals. Instead, it's about weighting.
"I would have had a better chance of getting an award in the Queen's honours list than these people recognising my achievements," says Williams. "Goalscoring is an art no matter what standard you play at. In my opinion they need to have a trophy for each weighting category or revert back to the old system. But I'm sure sponsors want a nice photo with a winner who is a famous footballer and not someone they haven't heard of, so they probably have something to say on how the competition is structured."
Perhaps he's right. And if so, it's wrong. As it stands any one of Suárez, Ronaldo and Diego Costa look like they will finish the season on a higher tally than Valskis, meaning the eventual winner would be Europe's top goalscorer instead of points scorer. And while that in itself is a good thing, meaning that for the fourth season no player from a smaller league has been muscled out of the picture, it is evidence that the current system is most definitely flawed. Weighting should be given the boot. And the Golden Shoe should be made available in all sizes.
Additional reporting by the Lithuanian football journalist Justas Kontrimas. Follow him here on Twitter. Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.