IFFHS WORLD'S ALL-TIME BEST CLUB GOAL SCORERS

• Feb 9, 2021
• IFFHS News

Picture : The Top 3 Romario - Pelé - Cristiano Ronaldo

World's All-Time best club goal-scorers : Ronaldo or Messi, the new recordman in 2021 ?

Continuing the theme of new achievement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, we publish (for the first time) the ranking of World’s all-time best club goal-scorers. In the table below, all players who ever amassed 500 and more goals in top-level club football, are gathered.
Now this list contains 16 names. Most of them are greatest stars but there are some players much less known in global sense. Three players from Northern Ireland - Jimmy Jones, Joe Bambrick and Glenn Ferguson – have done almost nothing outside of Great Britain (even of just their country). But they scored great amount of goals in super-attacking local competitions and satisfy the criteria to be present in this list.

As for Ibrahimovic, with his two goals for Milan in Feb 7 game vs Crotone, he caught up and overcame Alfredo Di Stefano. The glorious “Saeta Rubia” dropped to 16th place with exactly 500 goals while “Ibra” entered top-15. He can soon surpass another legend of the past, Uwe Seeler (508 goals). For achieving more, Zlatan should try very hard.
In the meantime, Cristiano Ronaldo (third place with 661 club goals) and Lionel Messi (placed 5th with 651) are already pretty close to two great Brazilian topping the category, Romário (689) and Pelé (684). There is certain probability to see a new world record holder already in 2021.

WORLD'S ALL TIME RANKING (at 8.2.2021)

	Player	Nationality	Period	League		Cups		ICC		Total	Total	Total	Sum
				NL	RL	NC	OC	CT	ICT	Leagues	Cups	ICC
1	Romário	Brazil	1985-2007	311	233	51	40	50	4	544	91	54	689
2	Pelé	Brazil	1957-1977	138	470	49		17	10	608	49	27	684
3	Cristiano Ronaldo	Portugal	2002-	466		41	10	137	7	466	51	144	661
4	Josef Bican	Austria, BM, Czechoslovakia	1931-1955	518		72	42	24		518	114	24	656
5	Lionel Messi	Argentina	2004-	457		54	14	121	5	457	68	126	651
6	Ferenc Puskás	Hungary, Spain	1943-1966	514		69	7	53	2	514	76	55	645
7	Jimmy Jones	Northern Ireland	1947-1964	332		43	258	2		332	301	2	635
8	Joe Bambrick	Northern Ireland	1927-1943	348		40	205			348	245		593
9	Eusébio	Portugal	1957-1979	425		97		57	2	425	97	59	581
10	Gerd Müller	Germany	1964-1981	405		78	14	68	1	405	92	69	566
11	Glenn Ferguson	Northern Ireland	1987-2011	311		52	193	6		311	245	6	562
12	Fernando Peyroteo	Portugal	1937-1949	332	131	70	2	3		463	72	3	538
13	Jimmy McGrory	Scotland	1922-1937	408		77	53			408	130		538
14	Uwe Seeler	Germany	1954-1978	179	267	24	17	21		446	41	21	508
15	Zlatan Ibrahimović	Sweden	1999-	396		43	5	57		396	48	57	501
16	Alfredo Di Stéfano	Argentina, Spain	1945-1966	376		55		56	13	376	55	69	500
	BM = (Protectorate) Bohemia and Moravia

NL = National League 
RL = Regional League (taken in account only having the strength comparable to national league; Campeonato Carioca in the case of Romário, Campeonato Paulista for Pelé, Lisbon Championship for Peyroteo, Oberliga Nord for Seeler).
NC = (main) national Cup
OC = other (appropriate) national Cups
ICC = International Club Competitions
CT = Continental tournaments
ICT = InterContinental (world) tournaments (always of appropriate level)