The 30-man shortlist to reveal who will be crowned as the best football player on Earth has been revealed, with Manchester United and Leicester City players featuring.
France Football has released the names of the 30 men that will be in contention for the most prestigious individual prize in the world football.
The shortlist includes perennial nominee Cristiano Ronaldo as well as Sergio Aguero and Kevin DeBruyne who are the only Premier League representatives- with Zlatan Ibrahimovic being selected for his PSG displays.
The contenders have been steadily presented by France Football in batches of five at a time on Monday and Lionel Messi is expected to be added over the day.
This is the first year since 2009 that French news outlet France Football’s Ballon d’Or award will not bare the name of world governing body Fifa.
Now that the collaboration as ended FIFA will revived their own World Player of the Year award which has been obsolete since 2009.
And this year the award will be judged solely by a coterie of journalists, whereas before FIFA’s Ballon d’Or which was decided from the votes of national team managers, captains and journalists.
The first Ballon d’Or was won by Blackpool’s Stanley Matthews who beat Alfredo Di Stefano for the inaugural title in 1956.
Last year’s winner was Ronaldo, who clinched his fourth honour.
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