BALLON D'OR WINNERS

The Ballon d'Or or „Golden ball“ (1956.-2009.) is often referred to as the European Footballer of the Year award. It was presented to the player who had been voted to have performed the best over the previous year. The award was conceived by France Football's chief magazine writer Gabriel Hanot, who asked his colleagues to vote for the player of the year in Europe in 1956. Originally, journalists could only vote for European players at European clubs, meaning that players like Diego Maradona (who played in European football clubs but is not European) and Pele (who neither played for a European club and not from Europe) were ineligible for the award. A change in the rules in 1995 allowed non-European players to be eligible for the award if they played for a European club. The first non-European to win after the rule change was Milan's George Weah in the same year. In 2007, any player in the world became eligible, and the number of journalists allowed to vote also increased.

Three players have won the award three times each: Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten. Platini is the only player to have won the award three times in a row, when he won the award from 1983 to 1985. Ronaldo became the first Brazilian to win the award in 1997, after non-Europeans were made eligible.

The Ballon d'Or and the men's FIFA World Player of the Year award were merged in 2010 and the world's best male player has since been awarded the FIFA Ballon d'Or each year..

Messi is last winner of Ballon d'Or and first of new FIFA Ballon d'Or.

FIFA Ballon d'Or is awarded based on the votes from national team coaches and captains, as well as journalists from around the world.

From 2016 we again have FF Ballon d'Or, while FIFA created The Best FIFA Football Awards. 
2018 Ballon d'Or winner is Luka Modrić. He ended a 10 years dominance of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.  

 

2020. - NOT AWARDED