Although he’s just 24 years old, soccer player Lionel Messi of Argentina picked up his third consecutive Player of the Year award in Zurich, Switzerland on Jan. 8. The award is handed out by FIFA, which is soccer’s governing body, and is known as the FIFA Ballon d’Or trophy.

Messi, who plays for Spanish club Barcelona, beat out his teammate Xavi Hernandez and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo for the award. In the same ceremony, Homare Sawa of Japan was named the female player of the year and Japan’s Norio Sasaki took home the trophy for the best women’s coach of the year.

Messi and his team had an excellent year as Barcelona won the European Champions League, the Club World Cup, and the Spanish league title. Messi is one of just three three-time winners of the trophy, with the others being France’s Zinedine Zidane and Brazil’s Ronaldo. Michel Platini of France won the award three years in a row from 1983 to 85 when it was given out by the France Football magazine. That award was then combined with FIFA’s in the 1990s and is the one that’s been handed out ever since.

Messi, who made his debut for the club as a 16-year-old, scored in Barcelona’s 3-1 win over Manchester United in the Champions League final last May, giving the Spanish team its second European title in the last three years. He also scored two goals in December as the club won the FIFA World Club Cup in Yokohama, Japan.

The winners were voted on by a panel consisting of journalists and national team captains and coaches around the world. Messi garnered 48 per cent of the total votes while Ronaldo of Portugal received 22 per cent and Xavi of Spain was named on 9.2 per cent of the ballots. Those three players were narrowed down from an earlier group of 23 players.

Messi is under contract with Barcelona until 2016. But while he is a fantastic player for his club, Messi struggles on the international stage with Argentina. They hosted the Copa America tournament last year and were knocked out of it in front of their own fans by Uruguay in the quarterfinals. Uruguay then went on to win the tournament and Messi went through the event without a goal.

Many fans and ex players feel Messi shouldn’t be considered an all-time great until he can reproduce his club form for his country. Platini said Maradona won a World Cup with Argentina in 1986 and he’s considered to be a great player because of that, not what he achieved at club level. Platini added that winning a World Cup is something special because fans always remember the winners. Messi scored a club record 53 goals last season and could beat it this year as he had 31 after the team’s first 27 games.

Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, said Messi is one of the greatest players to ever come out of Argentina and ranks with all-time world greats such as Pele, Alfredo di Stefano, and Diego Maradona. Ferguson’s seen quite a bit of Messi recently as his club lost twice to Barcelona in Champions Leagues finals.

Ferguson also took home an award from Zurich as he was given the Presidential Award, which is in honor of his success as a manager during the last three decades. Last year Ferguson led Manchester United to their 12th English Premier League title since he’s been in charge. The club has won 19 of them overall, an English record.

Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola won the Coach of the Year award by beating out Ferguson and Jose Mourinho of Real Madrid. Neymar, a Brazilian forward with Santos, beat out Wayne Rooney of Manchester United and Messi in the Goal of the Year award.

With all of the bribery and game-fixing going on in soccer throughout the world it’s hard to believe teams and players have time for anything else. Well they do, but it’s also another black mark on the sport as the top two divisions in Spain are going on strike over money issues, meaning the season-opening weekend on Aug. 20-21 is off.

The pre-season got underway with no problems and the Spanish Super Cup was played between Barcelona and Real Madrid. It ended in a 5-4 aggregate win for Barcelona and a mild on-field brawl. But the players have agreed to strike over money issues. While Spain has dominated world soccer over the past several years by winning the European Championship in 2008 and the World Cup in 2010, the nation’s league is in a mess.

It’s been reported that half of the teams in Spain’s first (Primera Division) and second divisions have already entered bankruptcy proceedings. This includes Granada, Real Betis, and Rayo Vallecano, the three teams that were promoted into the Primera Division for this season. Most of the country’s smaller clubs are in huge debt and trying to protect themselves from creditors.

It’s not really surprising though considering that the Primera Division is nothing more than a two-horse race between last season’s champions Barcelona and runners up Real Madrid. Barcelona has won the title the last three years by an average of 24 points over the third place team. Meaning, other than Real, there’s nobody else in sight.

Most fans realize the top two Spanish clubs are out to make as much money as possible and the best way to do this is by winning the European Champions League. The rest of the Spanish clubs don’t have the money to compete and that suits Barcelona and Real just fine as it basically guarantees them passage to the Champions League each season.

Smaller teams are finding it hard to lure corporate backers, while Barcelona recently signed the richest five-year shirt sponsorship agreement in soccer history with the Qatar Foundation, estimated to be worth about $240 million. In addition, each club makes its own television broadcasting deals instead of evenly sharing the loot. This means the majority of the cash is scooped up by Barcelona and Real and they’ve developed their own TV stations.

The problem in Spain it’s not an “all for one and one for all” situation, it’s more like “every man for himself.” This sees most teams falling by the wayside as the rich get richer. Of course, there soon won’t be anybody left to play and fans are going to get tired of watching the haves paying the have-nots.

With all of these clubs going belly-up, the players are demanding that more money is set aside for them to make sure they get paid if their teams go bankrupt. The players want to make sure they get paid and the government is looking for millions in unpaid taxes. The league might have to give in to some of the demands and it’s believed the television rights system will change in 2014 when current deals expire to share the profits more evenly.

But even though they’re sinking like stones, some of these financially-struggling clubs are still spending ridiculous amounts of money buying players because Spanish laws have loopholes that can be exploited. It’s an ongoing problem that might be relieved temporarily by a strike, but it’s not going to be solved that way.

Sports fans have argued for years over which specific sport pays its players the highest wages. That debate has been put to rest somewhat in the internet age as annual reports are typically released showing who makes exactly how much money. A new report was released in mid-April by sporting Intelligence and there may be a few surprises to some people.

According to the report, NBA basketball players make the most money on average, but Spanish soccer teams Barcelona and Real Madrid pay their players the best. Last year, players from the New York Yankees were the highest paid on average. The average wage of an NBA player is $4.79 million a year or $92, 199 a week.

The average wage at Barcelona is just over $7.9 million a year ($157,038 per week) while Madrid’s players make about $7.35 million yearly ($146,038). Yankees players are the third-biggest money makers at  about $6.75 million a year ($134,122).

The study included 14 different sports leagues around the world in seven different sports. There was a total of 272 franchises involved in the studies. The biggest surprise to most people was the fact that the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket league came in second place behind the NBA when it comes to the top paid league.

Most North Americans have never heard of the league and probably wouldn’t know what a cricket bat was if hit over the head by one. But they make so much money because the league is only six weeks long. Therefore, millions of dollars can be made in a month and a half.

But even though the NBA is the best paid league, only four teams are in the top 12 best paid teams. These are the LA Lakers, Denver Nuggets, and Utah Jazz. However, there are 10 NBA teams in the top 30. Six of the top 12 clubs are soccer teams and there are two baseball franchises, the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. What’s surprising is that even though the IPL ranks behind the NBA as best paid league there are no IPL teams in the top 12. In fact, there are only four in the top 50 and these are ranked at 26, 29, 40, and 44. The Royal Challengers Bangalore are the best paid IPL team at $86,667 per player.

The English Premier League is still the top-paid soccer league with five clubs in the top 30. These are Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal.

However, let’s put this report in perspective though. Some leagues have salary caps and some don’t. In addition, when you see athletes such as boxer Manny Pacquiao earning about $15 million for a fight, it’s hard to rate anybody else as being higher paid. In fact, that would make a good idea for another survey, to compare team sports to individual sports such as boxing, tennis, and golf.