Ballon d’Or and Fifa World Player of the Year will again become separate, say reports in Spain
- New Fifa president Gianni Infantino to ditch Ballon d'Or and return to also having Fifa World Player of the Year award
- More players other than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo could win top gongs
THE Fifa Ballon d’Or award will once again become separate from football’s governing body, according to reports in Spain.
The annual gong was created in 2010 when the European and world honours merged.
The winner of Ballon d’Or will be voted for exclusively by the continent’s leading journalists.
Prior to 2010, , managed the Ballon d’Or while Fifa would hand out the Fifa World Player of the Year award — and it would frequently yield out two different winners.
Since the merge, only Lionel Messi (four times) and Cristiano Ronaldo (twice) have won the awards.
The Ballon d’Or was created in 1956 — in the same summer of the first European Cup final — to reward the best player in Europe.
It is claimed the initial reason for the gong was to pay homage to the stunning career of Sir Stanley Matthews, who was the inaugural recipient.
Only European players were honoured — so Fifa introduced a secondary award for players from all around the globe in 1991.
Lothar Matthaus was the inaugural winner, despite finishing as runner up to Jean-Pierre Papin in the Ballon d’Or honours list the same season.
The rules for the European award changed in 1995 and any player playing in the continent was eligible for the award.
And so George Weah became the first non-European winner.
The Liberian also claimed the Fifa World Player of the Year award that same year.
There have been four English winners of the Ballon d’Or award, but none have ever had their hands on the global gong.
As well as Matthews, Sir Bobby Charlton was rewarded for England’s World Cup success in 1966 and Kevin Keegan is the only double winner — claiming back-to-back titles in 1978 and 1979.
Michael Owen was the other surprise winner, in 2001 after he helped Liverpool to FA Cup, League Cup, Uefa Cup and Uefa Super Cup success.
Curiously, he finished in eighth-place in the Fifa World Player of the Year list.
Despite no Englishmen winning the global award in its 19 years of existence, David Beckham (1999 and 2001) and Frank Lampard (2005) finished as runners up.
Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo are the only players to win the accolade three times, while Ronaldinho claimed it twice.
In its previous guise, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten each won the award on a record three occasions.
However, while Cristiano Ronaldo has since matched their achievements, Messi has overtaken them with a staggering five wins in total.