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What's the story?
Cristiano Ronaldo has snubbed Lionel Messi while voting for the Best FIFA Men's Player award this year, but the Barcelona talisman has voted for the Juventus star in his top three.
In case you didn't know...
The FIFA Best award ceremony was held at La Scala in Milan on Monday night as Messi beat Ronaldo and Virgil van Dijk to the FIFA Best Men’s Player of the Year award.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp beat Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino to the FIFA Men's Coach of the Year award, while Megan Rapinoe won the FIFA Best Women’s Player of the Year award for her World Cup-winning exploits with the United States national team over the summer.
The voting rights for the award have been distributed between two parties, with the captain and coach of all the member nations of FIFA getting 50% of the votes and selected media members and fans across the globe making the other half of the decision. All three finalists in contention for the honour have also been given a say.
The heart of the matter
It has now been revealed that the eventual winner, Messi, voted for Sadio Mane as his most deserving player, with Ronaldo in second place, and Barcelona teammate, Frenkie de Jong, in third place.
However, Ronaldo did not return the favour as his ballot consisted of Matthijs de Ligt at the top, de Jong in second place and Kylian Mbappe in third place.
This is not the first time Ronaldo has snubbed Messi in the voting process for the award, having done the same in 2018 by voting for former Real Madrid teammate Raphael Varane instead.
Meanwhile, Virgil van Dijk named Messi as the winner on his ballot, with Liverpool teammates Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane in second and third place respectively.
What's next?
With both the UEFA and FIFA award winners now announced, it will be interesting to see who will take home the coveted Ballon d'Or award at the end of the year.
