The Czech Football Federation has contested allegations that Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo has smashed the official goal record throughout history, and insisted that the Portuguese captain needs 62 additional goals to surpass Joseph Pecan.
Ronaldo scored 760 goals during his career in Juventus' 2-0 victory over Napoli in the Italian Super Cup on Wednesday, and received great praise from several media outlets as the most goalscorer in the history of the game, by beating the Austrian-Czech striker Pecan, who scored 759 in total.
But the Czech Federation says Pecan's total goals are in fact 821 after reviewing his career statistics.
The best goalscorer in football history?
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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
- Czech Football Team (@ceskarepre_eng) January 21, 2021
"The History and Statistics Committee of the Czech Federation has counted all the goals scored by legend Joseph Pekan, and we can announce that he scored 821 goals in official matches," the Czech Federation said on his Twitter account.
The federation issued a statement on its website detailing Pecan's goals for the club and the national team in a 24-year career between 1931 and 1955.
"The statistics included his goals in matches in the first and second division tournaments, domestic cups, the Central European Cup (international) and the national team, and on the contrary, friendly matches have not been counted, with the exception of the national team matches," the statement said.
The statement added, "We can very seriously say that this number is in line with the current situation of being able to verify all data, so it is the most accurate number possible."
The historic record of goalscoring status is considered controversial, and FIFA does not keep an official record.