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The FIFA 100 was unveiled on March 4, 2004 at a gala ceremony in London to mark the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of football. The list contains the world-renowned Brazilian striker Pelé's choice of the "greatest living footballers". The figure 100 refers to the 100th anniversary of FIFA and not the number of players listed, which is actually 125: Pelé found it too difficult to list just 100.^[1] The list contains 123 professional men and 2 women players. At the time the FIFA 100 was selected, 50 of the players were still active, with the remaining 75 retired from the game.

Some football observers have questioned the selection methodology of the list. David Mellor, former politician turned football pundit, wrote in his column in the Evening Standard, that he felt the selections were politically motivated rather than made on purely footballing grounds.^[2] He suggested that the selections looked as if they came from the pen of Sepp Blatter rather than Pelé. As evidence for this, Mellor noted the wide geographical spread of the selected players, noting in particular Abédi Pelé of Ghana, Hong Myung-Bo of South Korea and El-Hadji Diouf of Senegal: a true selection would be more heavily biased to South America and Europe, he claimed. Such assertions were also forwarded by BBC columnist Tim Vickery.^[3] Other critics have claimed the list was too biased towards modern-day players.

The most notable display of contempt for the controversial list came from one of Pelé's old team-mates, the former Brazil midfielder Gérson, who reacted to his omission from the FIFA 100 by tearing up a copy of the list on a Brazilian television programme. Marco van Basten and Uwe Seeler refused to take part in the project on a point of principle.^[4] . Diego Maradona , Daniel Passarella , Gerd Muller , Ferenc Puskas and Rivelino couldn`t be contacted.

Below is a ranking the number of players per country in relation to the total of their population. Only countries with two or more players are included.

Country	Population (Millions)	Players	Ratio (Pop. to Players)
Brazil	188	15	12.5
Italy	58	14	4.1
France	61	14	4.4
The Netherlands	16	13	1.2
Argentina	40	10	4.0
Germany	82	10	8.2
England	51	7	7.3
Denmark	5	3	1.7
Belgium	10	3	3.3
Portugal	10	3	3.3
Spain	40	3	13.3
Czech Republic	10	2	5.0
Chile	16	2	8.0
Turkey	72	2	36.0
USA	300	2	150.0

• FIFA World Rankings
• World soccer players of the 20th century
• FIFA Women's World Rankings

• The FIFA 100

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