Best Soccer Player ESPY Award

The Best Soccer Player category of the ESPY Award was presented in 2000, 2001, 2005, and 2006 to the soccer (association football) player adjudged to be the best in a given calendar year among those contesting the sport on the professional or international level, irrespective of gender or nation represented. The award was bifurcated in , but the resulting Best Male and Best Female Soccer Player ESPY Awards were joined once more in 2005. The award was effectively discontinued in 2005 and replaced by the Best MLS Player ESPY Award (which was first awarded in 2006), as the 2006 award went to a worldwide star not to an American as in the previous years.

During the award's three years, the voting panel comprised variously fans, who participated through Internet balloting; sportswriters and broadcasters, sports executives, and retired sportspersons, termed collectively experts; and ESPN personalities. The ESPY Awards ceremony was conducted in February and awards conferred reflected performance and achievement over the twelve months previous to presentation. Since 2005, voting was undertaken exclusively by fans over the Internet from among nominees selected by the ESPN Select Nominating Committee, and awards have been presented in July to reflect performance and achievement over the twelve months previous to presentation. Christiano Ronaldo Is World's 'Best' Player, Beating Messi And Van Dijk For 2019 FIFA FIFPro Men's Award.

List of winners[]

Year	Player	National team represented	Club team represented	Position played primarily
	Mia Hamm	United States	None	Forward
	Mia Hamm	United States	Washington Freedom	Forward
–	Not awarded
2005	Mia Hamm	United States	None
	Ronaldinho	Brazil		Midfielder

See also[]

• Landon Donovan MVP Award (Major League Soccer MVP Award)
• FIFA World Player of the Year
• FIFA Women's World Cup awards
• FIFA World Cup awards
• African Footballer of the Year
• Asian Footballer of the Year
• European Footballer of the Year
• Oceania Footballer of the Year
• South American Footballer of the Year

Notes[]

References[]

• Enumeration of past winners from HickokSports.com at the Library of Congress Web Archives (archived 2002-02-23)