The Ballon d’Or, also known as the Golden Ball is an award presented annually by France Football, a French News Magazine. The award is considered to be one of the oldest and the most important individual awards for football players. The Ballon d’Or was first awarded in 1956 up until 2010. During the years of 2010-2015, the award merged together with the FIFA World Player of the Year award that was founded in 1991. The FIFA World Player of the Year award became the FIFA Ballon d’Or. The partnership ended in 2016 when FIFA reverted to The Best FIFA Men’s Player Award.

Players Who Won the Ballon d’Or Award

Originated from France, the current holder of the Ballon d’Or is the popular football player Lionel Messi. He is also currently the holder of the most number of Golden Ball awards, a total of 6 awards. Christiano Ronaldo, on the other hand, currently holds the most number of nominations for the Ballon d’Or award, 12 times since the award’s conception. Before the award was called the Ballon d’Or, it was originally the Continental European Footballer of the Year Award. Other recipients of the prestigious award included George Weah, the only African recipient of the award since the history of the Golden Ball. Other professional players who won the award include Bobby Charlton, Gerd Muller, Paolo Rossi, Rivaldo, Zinedine Zidane, Kaka and Ronaldhino.

The Winners of the Golden Ball

In football history, the Ballon d’Or Award is usually awarded to attacking players and is still the same over the recent decades. During the history of the popular football award, it was also exclusively given to premier leagues and football clubs. Before 1995, 10 leagues received the Ballon d’Or award, all of which are exclusive to teams under the countries of Spain, Italy, Germany and England. The Spain La Liga currently holds the most number of Ballon d’Or winners. The cities of Real Madrid and Barcelona supplied the most number of Golden Ball winners since 1995. Stanley Matthews from Blackpool was the very first winner of the award in 1956 topping Alfredo di Stefano from Real Madrid. In 1957, Alfredo di Stefano took the award with an impressive score of 72 compared to the second runner up, Billy Wright’s score of 19. Christiano Ronaldo won the award five times and landed on second place six times from 2007 to 2019.