Cristiano Ronaldo has not broken Josef Bican’s all-time goalscoring record according to the Czech football federation despite scoring his 760th official goals on Wednesday, January 20.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been the biggest talking point since Wednesday night when he scored against Napoli in the club’s 2-0 win which earned the club 9th Italian Super Cup and Ronaldo’s 4th title in Italy
Ronaldo’s 64th-minute goal surpassed the official goals tally of Josef Bican’s 759 official goals which relegated the late Czech Republic football icon to second on the list of the highest goalscorers’ list and placed Brazilian’s Pele third.
But in a statement Czech Republic’s football federation issued today, January 21, the football federation claimed that Bican scored 821 official goals and not 760 official goals which Cristiano Ronaldo hit on Wednesday.
The best goalscorer in football history? 🤔
— Czech Football Team (@ceskarepre_eng) January 21, 2021
The History and Statistics committee of the Czech FA counted all the goals scored by the legendary Josef Bican and we can declare he scored 821 goals in official matches.
Jaroslav Kolář, the Head of the committee shares more details. pic.twitter.com/eYqTcGJf1p
Josef Bican played for Czechoslovak and Slavia Prague during his time and he has been the all-time highest goalscorer in world football for over 30 years. His goals record that has been in the public domain have been 759 goals but the Czech football federation thinks otherwise.
“The History and Statistics committee of the Czech FA counted all the goals scored by the legendary Josef Bican and we can declare he scored 821 goals in official matches,” a tweet by the Czech football federation said.
“The answer is – Josef Bican scored 821 goals in official matches,” a statement on the federation’s official website read.
“Goals from matches in the first and second leagues, national cups, the Central European Cup, and national team selections are included. On the contrary, friendly matches are not included in the statistics, except the national team.
“It can be stated with full seriousness that this is a number that corresponds to the current state of the possibility of verifying all data, so it is the most accurate number possible.”
The Czech football federation’s argument against Cristiano Ronaldo being the all-time highest goalscorer is similar to what the Brazilian club Santos did when it was reported that Lionel Messi has broken the total goals Pele scored for Santos.
For years, Pele is said to have scored a total of 643 official goals for Santos which has been the highest amount of goals a player has scored for a single club. When Messi scored his 644th goal for Barcelona against Real Valladolid on December 22, 2020, to surpass Pele’s record, Santos countered it.
Santos argued in a statement that Pele’s total goals for Santos were 1,099, not the 643 goals that are being tagged to the Brazilian football icon.
