The election of Pavel Nedved as 2003 European Footballer of the Year by France Football magazine has confirmed that readers of World Soccer were again ahead of the game in voting for the Czech midfielder in our annual poll earlier this month.

Nedved has been the outstanding player of the past 12 months, both for his club, Juventus, and his country, Czech Republic. He deserves his accolades in recognition of his achievements in taking Juventus to the Champions League final and captaining his country through a challenging Euro 2004 qualifying campaign.

It is always difficult picking the best player in a non-tournament year, but World Soccer's readers and France Football's journalists have pulled it off.

Their votes have again left FIFA feeling a little embarrassed about their World Player award. Nobody is disputing that Zinedine Zidane, winner of FIFA's award, is a wonderful footballer. Indeed, of the current generation of players, Zidane and Ronaldo are the only ones who will be remembered as true greats, alongside the likes of Pele, Maradona, Cruyff and Platini.

But Zidane won FIFA's award because of his reputation and that of his club, Real Madrid rather than his achievements on the pitch.

It is an alarming trend that Real Madrid players have now won the FIFA award for the past three years running (Figo in 2001, Ronaldo in 2002, and now Zidane, who also won in 2000 while with Juventus).

Many of the national coaches who vote in FIFA's award are seduced by image of Real Madrid as the world's most glamorous club. Zidane has outshone the other Galacticos at the Bernabeu in the past year, so a vote for the Frenchman was the easy, least embarrassing option. But it was far from being the considered, intelligent option. That was Nedved -- by a country mile.

In the Champions League knockout matches -- the stage where individual performances count most in the end-of-year awards -- Real Madrid were beaten in the semifinals by a Juventus team inspired by Nedved. Had Nedved played in the final against Milan (he was suspended) we may have had a different outcome.

Another disturbing aspect of the

FIFA award was the way it was reported in the UK press, who were all convinced that Thierry Henry would win. Nobody was more guilty than the BBC, who led their sports bulletins with the claim by that Henry was favorite to land FIFA's gong.

In fact, Henry was nothing of the sort, Arsenal having failed again to reach the Champions League knockout stages. (Ronaldo was actually the bookies' favorite). But the BBC had an interview with Henry on their Sports Personality of the Year show ' and used their news bulletin to publicize the interview.

At the BBC these days, they never let the facts get in the way of a good plug for another BBC program.