It was widely reported that Lionel Messi set a new record of most goals in a year when he scored his 85th and 86 goals of the year in Barcelona’s 2-1 victory over Betis, surpassing a mark set by German player Gerd Mueller 40 years ago.
Argentine international Messi has scored 12 goals for national side and 74 goals for his club “Barcelona” for making the history. He totaled 56 La Liga goals, 13 Champions League goals, 3 King’s Cup goals and 2 Spanish Super Cup goals on the way.
The Zambian Football Association claimed that the greatest Zambian player Godfrey Chitalu made a record in 1972 by scoring 107 goals for country and club but FIFA’s spokesman Alex Stone made it clear that FIFA does not keep domestic records.
“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 in an interview. “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.”
According to Stone, Fifa hasn’t recognized Messi as record holder for scoring most goals in a year.
Messi is one of the three nominees for “FIFA’s world player of the year” award along with Andres Iniesta and Cristiano Ronaldo.