FIFA Ballon d'Or

FIFA Ballon d'Or

FIFA Ballon d'Or awarded to Messi in 2010
Sport	Association football
Awarded for	Best performing player of the calendar year
History
First award	2010
Editions	6
Final award	2015
Most wins	Lionel Messi (4 awards)

The FIFA Ballon d'Or ("Golden Ball") was an annual association football award presented to the world's best men's player from 2010 to 2015. Awarded jointly by FIFA and France Football, the prize was a merger of the FIFA World Player of the Year award and the Ballon d'Or, the two most prestigious individual honours in world football. Unlike the Ballon d'Or awarded by France Football, the FIFA Ballon d'Or, was not awarded based on votes from international journalists, but votes from national team coaches and captains, who selected the players they deemed to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.

The six editions of the FIFA Ballon d'Or were dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as part of their ongoing rivalry.

Messi, who played for Barcelona, won the inaugural Ballon d'Or in 2010 and went on to win three in a row, after his wins in 2011 and 2012. Ronaldo, who played for Real Madrid, won successive awards in the next two years. The final FIFA Ballon d'Or was presented to Messi in 2015. Its awarding bodies subsequently ended their partnership; for 2016, France Football reintroduced the previous format of the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA created The Best FIFA Men's Player award.