NEWS

Lionel Messi won Ballon d’Or award

ABOUT

• The Ballon d’Or – “Golden Ball”- is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football that is one of the oldest and generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players
• Awarded since 1956, although between 2010 and 2015
• An agreement was made with FIFA, and the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year (founded in 1991) and known as the FIFA Ballon d’Or. However, the partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d’Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men’s Player.
• The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d’Or are considered as winners by both award organisations.
• Conceived by sports writer Gabriel Hanot, the Ballon d’Or award honours the male player deemed to have performed the best over the previous year, based on voting by football journalists, from 1956 to 2006