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Ballon d'Or vs Fifa Best Player award: What's the difference and what happened to the former?

AFP/Getty Images
AFP/Getty Images

Just month since the crowning of The Best Fifa Football Awards winners, the shortlist for the Ballon d'Or is set to be announced.

After a spell of having just one main individual prize in the sport, we are back to two, though many of the names up for the honour are similar.

The Fifa World Player of the Year award was merged in a partnership with France Football's Ballon d'Or in 2010 and became known as the Fifa Ballon d'Or for the next six years.

Fifa agreed to pay £13million to merge the two awards, with Messi and Ronaldo the big winners as the then La Liga stars dominated throughout the six-year deal.

Fifa decided not to renew the deal in 2016, meaning the Ballon d'Or lost its 'Fifa' tag and reverted back to being voted for by journalists as a separate award as Fifa's The Best awards were created.

The Best Fifa Men's Player award is voted for by a collection of journalists, national team coaches, national team captains and the general public - each with a 25 per cent weighting towards the overall vote.

The Ballon d'Or is regarded as assessing a player during a calendar year, while The Best is from summer to summer, hence Messi being awarded in September.


The 2019 Ballon d'Or contenders

(AFP/Getty Images)
(AFP/Getty Images)

Cristiano Ronaldo

After nine years at Real Madrid, Ronaldo moved to Juventus last summer in a deal worth £100million looking for a new challenge at the age of 33 and was named Serie A's most valuable player 10 months later after winning the Scudetto.

Ronaldo finished as club's top scorer in every domestic competition he competed in before leading Portugal to Uefa Nations League glory over the summer.

The forward scored a hat-trick in the semi-final win over Switzerland before captaining the final win over Netherlands in Porto.

(PA)
(PA)

Virgil van Dijk

Van Dijk is widely regarded as the best centre-back in the world, with the eyebrow-raising £75m price Liverpool for him in January 2018 now considered a bargain.

Liverpool have been transformed from a vulnerable defence to among the best in Europe, culminating with their Champions League triumph in June of this year after finishing as runners-up 12 months prior.

Such is his calmness in possession, Van Dijk went 50 games without being dribbled past between March 2018 and August 2019, which was key to the Reds' agonising finish as runners-up behind Manchester City in the Premier League after winning 97 points.

(AFP/Getty Images)
(AFP/Getty Images)

Lionel Messi

Messi has another 12 months to celebrate but again found the game's top prizes out of his reach. Barcelona won La Liga once again as Messi was the top scorer across Europe and provided the most assists in Spain's top flight.

However, a semi-final second-leg collapse at Anfield saw Barca miss out in the Champions League once again as Liverpool scored 4-0 to seal a remarkable 4-3 aggregate win.

On the international stage, Messi suffered another semi-final exit as Argentina lost 2-0 to Brazil in the Copa America in July before beating Chile in the third-place play-off.