The European Golden Shoe, formerly known as the European Golden Boot, is an association football award presented each season to the leading goalscorer in league matches from the top division of every European national league. From its inception in the 1967–68 season the award, originally called Soulier d'Or, which translates from French as Golden Shoe or Boot, was given by L'Équipe magazine to the top goalscorer in all European leagues that season. Between 1968 and 1991, the award was given to the highest goalscorer in any European league. This was regardless of the toughness of the league in which the top scorer played and the number of games in which the player had taken part. During this period Eusébio, Gerd Müller, Dudu Georgescu and Fernando Gomes each won the Golden Boot twice.
Following a protest from the Cyprus FA, which claimed that a Cypriot player with 40 goals should have received the award (though the official top scorers for the season are both listed with 19 goals), L'Équipe issued no awards between 1991 and 1996; however, sponsors Adidas continued to present an award. The top scorer for the 1990–91 season, Darko Pančev, did not receive his award until 2006.
Since the 1996–97 season, European Sports Media have awarded the Golden Shoe based on a points system that allows players in tougher leagues to win even if they score fewer goals than a player in a weaker league. The weightings are determined by the league's ranking on the UEFA coefficients, which in turn depend on the results of each league's clubs in European competition over the previous five seasons. Goals scored in the top five leagues according to the UEFA coefficients list are multiplied by a factor of two, and goals scored in the leagues ranked six to 21 are multiplied by 1.5. Thus, goals scored in Serie A, the top Italian football league, will count for more than those scored in the weaker Welsh Premier League, its Welsh equivalent.
Read more about European Golden Shoe: Winners
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