Thierry Henry takes matters into his own hands and rips into Spurs when collecting Lionel Messi's The Best FIFA Men's Player award

Thierry Henry couldn't resist aiming a not-so-subtle dig at Spurs as he collected an award for Lionel Messi at FIFA's The Best ceremony.

The 46-year-old, who scored 228 goals in 377 games for the Gunners, accepted Messi’s award for the FIFA Best Men’s Player on the Argentine's behalf after he beat Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe to the gong.

A mix of national team captains, journalists, coaches and fans voted through FIFA's website to recognise the most exceptional performer between December 19, 2022 and August 20, 2023.

Messi, who lifted the Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain during that time, won the vote from fans and national team captains while Erling Haaland was picked by journalists and coaches.

But despite receiving the same amount of votes as Messi, the Norwegian missed out after a voting tie-break. Basically, because the two players were tied on points, the final decision went to national team captain votes.

Image credit: FIFA

All four home nation captains – Harry Kane, Andy Robertson, Aaron Ramsey and Jonny Evans – voted for Messi.

After it was announced that Messi would add another prize to his already-rammed trophy cabinet, former Barcelona teammate Thierry Henry went on stage to collect the award.

Here, he said the following to host Reshmin Chowdhury after accepting The Best award. "You’re a Spurs fan and you don’t usually get your hands on a trophy so, I’ll take this one."

Henry's joke was met with laughter from those in attendance and the moment soon went viral on social media.

You can watch the incident below:

Henry, of course, played alongside Messi during his successful three-year stay at Barcelona. The Frenchman once gave an insight into what it was like to play alongside the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner.

"You need to, at a particular moment, take your f'ing ego on the side," Henry explained. "Whatever you did before or you didn't do, when you arrive at Barcelona, you didn't win anything."

He added: "We're gonna run for this guy and this guy - on the top of everything - scores four every game.

"What people do not understand sometimes in big teams; big players, big competitors, important players are willing to do whatever needs to be done to win."

Topics: Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, FIFA, Argentina, France, Inter Miami, Paris Saint-Germain

Jack Kenmare

Senior Journalist at SPORTbible with a passion for long-form journalism. Almost 10 years’ experience across online and print.

@jackkenmare_