Nominees for FIA Ballon d"Or

The contenders for this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the best player of 2013 and for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2013 award were announced today on FIFA.com, francefootball.fr and YouTube.

In alphabetical order, the FIFA Ballon d’Or nominees are: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Franck Ribéry (France), while Nadine Angerer (Germany), Marta (Brazil) and Abby Wambach (USA) will contest the women’s award.

The candidates for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football awards were also announced. In alphabetical order, the contenders are:

Sir Alex Ferguson (Scotland/Manchester United FC former coach), Jupp Heynckes (Germany/FC Bayern München former coach) and Jürgen Klopp (Germany/Borussia Dortmund) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award, and Ralf Kellermann (Germany/VfL Wolfsburg), Silvia Neid (Germany/German national team) and Pia Sundhage (Sweden/Swedish national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award.

All the nominees were confirmed after a voting process which was open to the captains and head coaches of the men’s and women’s national teams of the 209 member associations as well as to international media representatives selected by FIFA and France Football voted for candidates.

The percentages of the collected votes are as follows (number of votes/number of associations):
Voting for men’s awards: 
Member associations (captains & coaches): 88%
Media representatives: 94%

Voting for women’s awards: 
Member associations (captains & coaches): 83%
Media representatives: 70%

The voting procedure for each of the awards is supervised and monitored by the independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.

The shortlist of 15 forwards for the FIFA FIFPro World XI was also announced, completing the final shortlist of 55 players also featuring five goalkeepers, 20 defenders and 15 midfielders.

The forward shortlist is (home country, club):
Sergio Agüero (Argentina, Manchester City FC); Mario Balotelli (Italy, Manchester City FC/AC Milan); Edinson Cavani (Uruguay, SSC Napoli/Paris Saint-Germain FC); Diego Costa (Spain, Club Atlético de Madrid); Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Real Madrid CF); Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire, Shanghai Shenhua FC/Galatasaray SK); Radamel Falcao (Colombia, Club Atlético de Madrid/AS Monaco FC); Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden, Paris Saint-Germain FC); Robert Lewandowski (Poland, Borussia Dortmund); Mario Mandžukić (Croatia, FC Bayern München); Lionel Messi (Argentina, FC Barcelona); Neymar (Brazil, Santos FC/FC Barcelona); Wayne Rooney (England, Manchester United FC); Luis Suárez (Uruguay, Liverpool FC); Robin van Persie (Netherlands, Manchester United FC).

See the full list on FIFA.com: http://www.fifa.com/ballondor/world11/index.html

In addition, the three nominees for the FIFA Puskás Award for the “most beautiful goal of the year” were announced. They are (in alphabetical order of the goalscorers’ names): Zlatan Ibrahimović (13 November 2012, Sweden v. England, international friendly), Nemanja Matić (13 January 2013, SL Benfica v. FC Porto, Liga ZON Sagres (Portugal)) and Neymar (15 June 2013, Brazil v. Japan, FIFA Confederations Cup).

All the awards will be presented at the FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on 13 January 2014 during a televised show to be streamed live on FIFA.com and FIFA on YouTube.

In addition to the above awards, the recipient of the FIFA Presidential Award and the winner of the FIFA Fair Play award will also be revealed during the award ceremony.

For more information about the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2013, including a list of previous winners, please visit www.FIFA.com and www.francefootball.fr.

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