Sports radio soccer player vote
The “Sportfunk” football election was an election initiated and organized by the Austrian sports magazine “ Sportfunk ”, in which the most popular football players in Austria were chosen by the magazine's readers. The election first took place in November 1946 and was repeated annually until 1955. The first Austrian footballer of the year was Franz Binder with 7896 votes, wafer-thin ahead of Karl Decker with 7812 votes. Votes were cast by means of a letter that could be sent to the sports radio editorial team or submitted there personally. According to its own statements, the paper was inspired by similar French and Soviet elections, as it was the first kind of such an election in Austria. Today this tradition of fan voting is continued by the Kronen Zeitung as the Krone footballer election.
In 1947 it was not possible to hold an election due to the paper shortage (!) Then prevailing in post-war Austria. In the 1948 election, however, the sports radio gave Franz Binder the title in retrospect and said: It can be assumed with certainty that the Rapidler would have been re-elected as the title holder in the past year, because Binder was in better shape at this time.
| year | player | society |
|---|---|---|
| 1946 | Franz Binder | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1948 | Franz Binder | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1949 | Franz Binder | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1950 | Gerhard Hanappi | SC Wacker Vienna |
| 1951 | Walter Zeman | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1952 | Walter Zeman | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1953 | Walter Zeman | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1954 | Gerhard Hanappi | SK Rapid Vienna |
| 1955 | Gerhard Hanappi | SK Rapid Vienna |