The 2016 Ballon d'Or was an award given to the best-performing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player around the world in 2016. In September 2016,

France Football ''France Football'' is a French weekly magazine containing football news from all over the world. It is considered to be one of the most reputable sports publications in Europe, mostly because of its photographic reports, in-depth and exclusiv ...

announced that their partnership with

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

for the

FIFA Ballon d'Or The FIFA Ballon d'Or ("Golden Ball") was an annual association football award presented to the world's best men's player from 2010 to 2015. Awarded jointly by FIFA and ''France Football'', the prize was a merger of the FIFA World Player of the Ye ...

award had come to an end and that they would revive the

Ballon d'Or The Ballon d'Or (; ) is an annual football award presented by French news magazine ''France Football'' since 1956. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year (fo ...

award, treating the 2016 edition as the 61st award. 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 Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains the Portugal national team. He is currently a free agent. Widely regarded as one of the greatest p ...

won the award by a record margin of 429 points ahead of second placed

Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés Messi (; born 24 June 1987), also known as Leo Messi, is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Paris Saint-Germain and captains the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the ...

and

Antoine Griezmann Antoine Griezmann (; born 21 March 1991) is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for La Liga club Atlético Madrid and the France national team. A versatile player, Griezmann is known for his attacking, passing, and supportiv ...

, 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

, the most of any European player in the history of the award.

Rankings

Sources:

References

{{Ballon d'Or recipients

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2016 in association football 2016 sports awards