FIFA Ballon d'Or Award or FIFA Player of the Year Award for male
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| FIFA Ballon d'Or |
The FIFA Ballon d'Or (it means “Golden Ball" in French) is an organization football award given annually to the male player who is considered to have performed the best in the previous year. It is awarded based on votes by coaches and captains of international teams, as well as journalists from around the world.
Previously, the Ballon d'Or was referred to as the European Footballer of the Year award. It is an annual association football award. The award was conceived by France Football’s chief magazine writer Gabriel Hanot, who asked his associates to vote for the player of the year in Europe in 1956. The first winner was British footballer Stanley Matthews of Blackpool football club.
Originally, journalists could only vote for European players at European clubs, meaning that players like Diego Maradona (who played in European football clubs but is not an European) and Pele (who neither played for a European club and nor European) were ineligible for this award. A change in the rules in 1995 allowed non-European players to be eligible for the award if they played for a European club. The first non-European to win after the rule change was A.C. Milan’s George Weah in that same year. In 2007, any player in the world became eligible, and the number of journalists allowed to vote also increased; 96 journalists from around the world chose their top five players, as opposed to the 52 Europe-based journalists in 2006.
