Lionel Messi wins record fifth Ballon d’Or

Lionel Messi has won the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’Or award, scooping the best player in the world accolade for a record fifth time. “It means that the world of football recognises that the best player of all time is Leo Messi”, Bartomeu was quoted as saying by goal.com on Tuesday.

“It’s incredible this is my fifth”.

Messi got 41.33 percent of total voting points in a 23-candidate ballot.

Neither man voted for the other in their respective top threes, with Messi choosing Barca team-mates Luis Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta, and Ronaldo also selecting a trio of club colleagues in Karim Benzema, James Rodriguez and Gareth Bale.

Messi’s mazy effort against Athletic Bilbao is included as is Alessandro Florenzi’s spectacular effort for AS Roma against Barcelona, with Brazil striker Wendell Lira’s acrobatic overhead kick for club side Goianesia rounding off the list.

The Argentine dethroned three-time victor Cristiano Ronaldo in adding to his four consecutive awards from 2009 to 2012.

The Catalan cluba’s coach Luis Enrique was chosen as the men’s “World Coach of the Year” after becoming European champion and winning the Spanish league and cup, European Super Cup and Club World Cup.

At first unable to speak with emotion, Lloyd was loudly applauded as she prepared to begin her acceptance speech. Sasic also scored six goals in Canada to win the tournament Golden Boot, then retired aged just 27.

United States World Cup-winning captain Carli Lloyd has won the Federation Internationale de Football Association women’s world player of the year award for 2015. Norio Sasaki of beaten finalist Japan had 17.79% while Mark Sampson – who took England to third place – had 10.68%.

Enrique received 31.08% of the votes to head off Bayern Munich’s former Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola (22.97%) and Argentinian Jorge Sampaoli, who got 9.47% after leading Chile to its first Copa America title in 2015.

Outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter, normally a central figure in the ceremony, was not involved after being banned for eight years by the Ethics Committee in December and there was no President’s Award, usually given out by Blatter for outstanding services to the game.