After a half-decade of presenting the FIFA Ballon d'Or, there are two separate awards now. The Ballon d'Or awarded every year from 1956 to 2009 by France Football will be revived as an independent award by the French publication. Conceived by Gabriel Hanot back in the day, the award is back to its traditional home.
FIFA – who used to award the FIFA World Player of the Year since 1991 till they joined forces with France Football – will now be presenting the BEST award to the premier Men's, Women's players as well as coaches award. FIFA will also be awarding their annual Puskas Award to the Best Goals scored in the year 2016.
When will they present the award?
Ballon d'Or – the 12th of December, 2016
FIFA BEST Player Award – the 9th of January, 2017
Where will they present the award?
Ballon d'Or – France Football have eschewed the extravagant displays of recent years and have announced that they will tweet out the winner's name on their official twitter handle. The next day, they will publish the name, along with an exclusive interview in their magazine. They will however, have a small ceremony in Paris with some of the athletes attending – although both Messi and Ronaldo are set to miss it. There will be no Televised coverage of the ceremony either.
Fret not, though, we have you covered – Sportskeeda will be running a live blog throughout the day to make sure you are up to date with what's happening
Also, Read - Ballon d'Or 2016 Award Live Ceremony
FIFA BEST Player Award – FIFA love their ceremonies, don't they? And this time, it's no different. The BEST awards will be presented in a gala event to be held in Zurich, the name of FIFA
Who are in the running?
Ballon d'Or – The publication have announced a thirty man shortlist that includes the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr., Luis Suarez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba – and a winner will be selected on voting.
Also, Read - 5 players who deserved to be on the 30 man Ballon d'Or shortlist
Also, Read - Cristiano Ronaldo is Ballon d'Or winner claims leaked document
FIFA BEST Player Award – Unlike the Ballon d'Or, FIFA have already announced a three-person shortlist for all their awards. The three names are Antoine Griezmann and two footballers you may have heard of – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The other awards are - 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
The interesting thing about the voting here is that, apart from the usual suspects – coaches, players, federations and journalists – 25% of the votes will be apportioned to the public! That's you and me!!
Again, don't worry – we've got your back: Here's how you can vote for your favourite!!
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