England Player Honours -
International Football Hall of Champions

Notes

The International Football Hall of Champions was launched at FIFA's annual awards gala on 12 January 1998, when the first 10 players, including England's Stanley Matthews and Bobby Charlton, were inducted.  Another five, including England's Bobby Moore, were installed at the January, 1999 awards gala, and a further four at the January, 2000 gala.  

Later in January, 2000, news reports indicated that plans to locate the Hall of Champions in Paris had fallen through and that negotiations were underway to move it to London.  Then the Hall of Champions disappeared from the news, and its official website was no longer updated after a posting stating that Italy's Giuseppe Meazza and Uruguay's Jos� Leandro Andrade were the most recent inductees, presumably for 2001.  The press releases and news stories on the FIFA awards ceremony of January, 2001, unlike those of previous years, did not carry anything about the Hall of Champions.  Although FIFA officially backed the Hall of Champions over its first three years, apparently the project had fallen into its disfavour.  Again there were no press releases or news stories about Hall of Champions selections in 2002, and the FIFA awards dinner of January, 2002 also came and went without mention of it.  

It became clear that the Hall of Champions has been abandoned altogether when FIFA's executive committee announced that at its meeting of 9 March 2002 "[t]he Spanish Football Federation was asked to pursue a project on FIFA's behalf for the establishment of a new International Football Hall of Fame in Valencia."  And on 26 May 2002, FIFA revealed that its Executive Committee had decided that "the site of the FIFA Hall of Fame will be in Valencia, Spain" with a planned inauguration date in November, 2004.  The Hall of Fame will be run as a joint venture by FIFA, the Spanish Football Association and the Province of Valencia, and FIFA will not bear any of the costs.  

And so, for reasons not explained, the Hall of Champions became defunct after three induction ceremonies.  Altogether 21 players were honoured, including the the two scheduled to be inducted at the aborted 2001 ceremony.

According to a statement appearing on the official Hall of Champions website: "The Hall of Champions will celebrate the lives and careers of the great figures of football. Through its inductees, the Hall will promote not only the values of excellence and achievement, but also those of sportsmanship and fairplay. Eligibility for the Hall of Champions is based on both sporting success and a consistent contribution to the positive image of the game of football.  To select the inductees, the Hall of Champions has drawn on the knowledge of a panel of esteemed football journalists from around the world."  

The Rules for Eligibility and Election to the Hall of Champions stated:  

"Candidates must have completed a minimum of 10 years of active participation in international competition play and been retired from active play for a minimum of 5 calendar years. 

"Candidates must have maintained a high level of sportsmanship, character, public morals, conduct and integrity, free from conviction of any criminal activity and/or guilt of misconduct both on and off the field detrimental to the positive image and integrity of football. In the event of disciplinary action in the form of long-term ban or suspension having been imposed by any national or international governing body, the approval of FIFA, and the applicable Confederation(s) and National Federation(s) in each country where the transgression(s) or infraction(s) occurred, must be granted in writing to the Steering Committee of the IFHOC before the eligibility for nomination will be granted."

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