The Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Maradona Award for the Best Scorer of the Year 2023 at the Dubai Globe Soccer Awards, supported by the Dubai Sports Council. The award ceremony for the fourteenth edition was hosted by the Atlantis Hotel and Resort on January 19.
Ronaldo clinched the award after outperforming Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane, and Erling Haaland, adding this achievement to his impressive list of individual successes. Ronaldo scored 54 goals in 59 matches, achieving his best annual goal tally since 2017, when he was with Real Madrid and scored 53 goals. This feat reinforced his status as the best scorer of the year, surpassing Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe (52 goals in 53 matches), Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane (52 goals in 57 matches), and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, who ended the year with 50 goals in 60 matches.
This award crowns Ronaldo’s remarkable year, especially notable as he is now 38 years old. He managed to score 34 goals for the Saudi Al Nassr team, competing for the Saudi Professional League title. This performance kept him in contention for the Best Player in the World award, the Best Player in the Middle East award, and the Fan’s Best Player award. Ronaldo is the historical top scorer of the game with more than 873 goals.
The second and final round of voting across the 11 main categories of the Dubai Globe Soccer Awards and the six digital categories, including the inaugural Italian League awards, saw more than 50 million votes from football fans worldwide. The total number of participants in the voting since its inception exceeded 70 million, doubling the number of votes compared to 2022.
The official Globe Soccer Awards jury, comprising over 30 prominent football figures, including Francesco Totti, Iker Casillas, Luis Figo, and Marcello Lippi, participated in the final selection process, which concluded on December 28, 2023.
The new Globe Soccer app recorded an unprecedented number of downloads, with 1.5 million people voting through this dedicated app.
The Saudi sports company, as the official broadcaster of the Dubai Globe Soccer Awards 2023, plans to stream the event live worldwide, with the possibility of broadcasting it on several online channels.
