2016 Ballon d'Or

The 2016 Ballon d'Or (lit. '2016 Golden Ball'), was an award given to the best-performing football player around the world in 2016. In September 2016, France Football announced the end of the partnership with FIFA for the FIFA Ballon d'Or and revived the original Ballon d'Or award, designating the 2016 ceremony as its 61st edition. France Football announced that they would publish a shortlist of 30 players across six announcements with two hour intervals on 24 October 2016. On 12 December 2016, Cristiano Ronaldo won the award by a record margin of 429 points ahead of second placed Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann, who came third. There were 173 voters. All were journalists, in a change from previous years, and each voter was from a different country. Each voter voted for three players who received 5 points, 3 points and one point respectively. Ronaldo scored 745 points out of a maximum possible of 865. It was his fourth Ballon d'Or, the most of any European player in the history of the award. == Rankings == Sources: == References ==