FIFA Refuses To Acknowledge Either Messi Or Chitalu For Goal-Scoring Record

FIFA Refuses To Acknowledge Either
Messi Or Chitalu For Goal-Scoring
Record

Football’s governing body, FIFA has
refused to get involved in the argument
over who holds the record of goals scored
in a calender year.
It was widely reported that Lionel Messi’s
86th goal of 2012, which he scored on
Sunday, surpassed a mark set by
Germany’s Gerd Mueller 40 years ago.
But the Zambian Football Association
claimed Godfrey Chitalu had scored 107
goals for club and country in 1972.
Fifa does not keep domestic records, so
“it’s not an official Fifa record”,
spokesman Alex Stone told BBC Sport.
The world governing body said that, given
it only maintains statistics for the
international competitions it runs, it is not
possibly to ratify records from club football
around the world.
“We don’t have a database which details
every football game played in every
country from around the world since day
one of their formation,” Stone said.
“It’s certainly nothing to do with bias – if
we can confirm records from our
tournaments we like doing that.
“It’s the sort of data fans and the media
like to see.”
Stone confirmed that Fifa has not
recognised Messi as holding the record.
“It’s a record where someone in the media
obviously collected statistics from
somewhere and noticed Messi was about to
pass that record.”