Soviet Footballer of the Year

The award Soviet Footballer of the Year was awarded to the best footballer of the Soviet Union from 1964 until 1991. The poll was conducted among journalists by the weekly sport newspaper Football (Football-Hockey).^[1] Each journalist named his own top three player every year. Each place carried a point weight such as 1st place was worth 3 pts., 2nd - 2, and 3rd - 1.^{[citation needed]}

The idea for the award appeared right after Lev Yashin has received Ballon d'Or award in 1963.^{[citation needed]} The honours were awarded along with several other prizes and awards at the end of the competition season. For goalkeepers being not limited from the Soviet Footballer of the Year, also were awarded separate honours the "Best Goalkeeper of the Year". The best goal-scorer of the Soviet Top League was awarded with the "Best Topscorer of the Year".^{[citation needed]} Before becoming an official award before 1964, in 1950s Moskovskij Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda were conducting own polls to honour the best footballer of the country.^{[citation needed]}

After the Soviet Union dissolved most of the new independent countries created their own awards to the best footballer of the year. A few countries including Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania had been awarding their own awards even before the collapse of Soviet Union.

• Armenian Footballer of the Year
• Azerbaijani Footballer of the Year
• Belarusian Footballer of the Year
• Estonian Footballer of the Year
• Georgian Footballer of the Year
• Kazakhstani Footballer of the Year
• Latvian Footballer of the Year
• Lithuanian Footballer of the Year
• Moldovan Footballer of the Year
• Footballer of the Year in Russia (Futbol)
• Footballer of the Year in Russia (Sport-Express)
• Ukrainian Footballer of the Year
• Uzbekistan Footballer of the Year
• Footballer of the Year in Baltic and Commonwealth of Independent States