It’s the Lionel Messi Golden Ball award that’s had everyone scratching their heads, and it appears to have been the catalyst for a worldwide sarcasm epidemic.

The Ball, Golden, is traditionally awarded to whomsoever is judged to have been the player of the tournament – but a different set of criteria seems to have been used for Brazil 2014.

Speculation has been rife as to the precise nature of these criteria, with hypotheses including Best Chris Barrie Lookalike and Most Improved Tax-Payer.

One thing that everyone agrees upon is that it couldn’t possibly have been for Best Player, since Messi was quite ostensibly not the World Cup’s best player and furthermore never has been.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, one wag suggested that Fifa strip tournament top scorer James Rodríguez of the Golden Boot and give that to Messi as well.

He harrumphed: “Give him the Golden Glove and all, I’m sure Manuel Neuer will understand.

“Frankly, the Lionel Messi Golden Ball award is a game-changer – I requested a pay rise this morning, despite having done absolutely nothing of note to warrant it.

“My employers were happy to comply on the grounds that they would most likely glean mild amusement from my projected sheepishness at claiming said extra wages.

“They might even make a humorous meme of me featuring the words ‘be all like’. It’s going to take Twitter by storm.”

Messi was unavailable for comment as he was being plaster cast with a view to replacing the Christ the Redeemer statue.

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