2009 Ballon d'Or

2009 Ballon d'Or
2009 Ballon d'Or
	2009 Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi
Date	1 December 2009
Location	Paris, France
Country	France
Presented by	France Football
Highlights
Won by	Lionel Messi (1st award)
Website	www.francefootball.fr

The 2009 Ballon d'Or, given to the best football player in the world as judged by an international panel of sports journalists, was awarded to Lionel Messi of Barcelona on 1 December 2009.^[1]

Messi won the award by a then record margin, 240 points ahead of 2008 winner Cristiano Ronaldo. Xavi was the second Barcelona player in the top three, finishing a further 63 points behind Ronaldo. Messi's win made him the first Argentine-born player to win the award since Omar Sívori in 1961; however, Sívori had taken Italian citizenship by that time and is recognised to have won the Ballon d'Or as an Italian player.

^ "Classement 2009". France Football (in French). Groupe Amaury. Archived from the original on 16 November 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2013.

[1] "Classement 2009". France Football (in French). Groupe Amaury. Archived from the original on 16 November 2012. Retrieved 10 January 2013.

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