FIFA has announced a replacement for the Ballon d’Or award after the football governing body separated itself from the French magazine.
The Ballon d’Or award’s association with FIFA ended earlier this year, as L’equipe did not renew their contract to name the FIFA World Player of the Year award that FIFA used to host.
FIFA ran a separate World Player of the Year award from 1991 until 2009. France Football and FIFA merged the two awards to create the FIFA Ballon d’Or which was subsequently announced during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi won the first edition, and now has a total of 4.
However, FIFA has announced a new set of awards that will simply be titled, ‘The Best FIFA Football Awards’.
Fans from all over the world would be able to vote for the FIFA world player of the year award.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said, “This event will be about football and its most passionate participants – players, coaches and fans. It is a new event with new approaches to celebrating the game we all love.”
- The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2016,
- The Best FIFA Women’s Player 2016,
- The Best FIFA Men’s Coach 2016,
- The Best FIFA Women’s Coach 2016,
- The FIFA Puskás Award 2016,
- The FIFA Fair Play Award 2016,
- The FIFA Fan Award 2016, and
- FIFA FIFPro World11
They will be decide by a two-part process which involves votes of the head coaches of all national teams which will comprise the 50% of the result; and then the other 50% will be split between votes from 200 media representatives from all over the world and an online public ballot.
FIFA also announced the schedule of the entire process :
November 1: ten candidates for The Best FIFA Women’s Coach 2016
November 2: ten candidates for The Best FIFA Men’s Coach 2016
November 3: ten candidates for The Best FIFA Women’s Player 2016
November 4: 23 candidates for The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2016; Voting process begins
November 22: Voting process closes
December 2: Final list of 3 nominees in each award category
The awards gala will take place in FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich on January 9th, 2016.
In the case of the Ballon d’Or, the shortlist has already been announced by L’Equipe, and Cristiano Ronaldo remains the favourite to win, having won the UEFA Champions League with Real Madrid and Euro 2016 with Portugal.
L’Equipe has returned to a format of voting with only journalists taking part.
