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The contenders for this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or Award for the best player of 2015 and for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2015 Award have been announced today on FIFA.com, francefootball.fr and on FIFA’s YouTube channel in a show hosted by Kate Abdo (Sky Sports) with expert analysis from Nadine Kessler (German national team player and FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2014) and Edgar Davids (former Dutch national team player and winner of the UEFA Champions League 1994-1995).
The nominees for the FIFA Ballon d’Or are, in alphabetical order: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal/Real Madrid), Lionel Messi (Argentina/FC Barcelona) and Neymar (Brazil/FC Barcelona). Meanwhile, Carli Lloyd (USA/Houston Dash), Aya Miyama (Japan/Okayama Yunogo Belle), and Célia Šašić (Germany/1. FFC Frankfurt) are in the running for 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 have also been announced. In alphabetical order, the contenders are:
Pep Guardiola (Spain/FC Bayern Munich), Luis Enrique Martínez (Spain/FC Barcelona), Jorge Sampaoli (Argentina/Chilean national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award; and Jill Ellis (USA/USA national team), Mark Sampson (Wales/English national team) and Norio Sasaki (Japan/Japanese national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award.
All of 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 207 member associations as well as international media representatives selected by FIFA and France Football.
The percentages of the collected votes are as follows (number of votes/number of associations):
Voting for men’s awards: 165
Member associations (captains & coaches): 79.71%
Media representatives: 88.60%
Voting for women’s awards: 136
Member associations (captains & coaches): 76,83%
Media representatives: 80.92%
The voting procedure for each of the awards was supervised and monitored by the independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.
In addition, the three nominees for the FIFA Puskás Award for the “most beautiful goal of the year” were announced. The three final goals are: Alessandro Florenzi – 16.09.2015, AS Roma – FC Barcelona, UEFA Champions League / Wendell Lira – 11.03.2015, Atletico-GO –Goianesia, Campeonato Goiano (Brazil) / Lionel Messi – 30.05.2015, Athletic Bilbao - FC Barcelona, Copa del Rey (Spain).
All of the awards will be presented at the FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony at theKongresshaus in Zurich on 11 January 2016 during a televised show to be streamed live on FIFA.com and FIFA on YouTube.
For more information about the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2015, including a list of previous winners, please visit www.fifa.com/ballon-dor/ and www.francefootball.fr.
Note to editors: the media accreditation process for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2015 opened on the FIFA Media Channel (http://media.fifa.com) on 16 November 2015 and will close on 16 December 2015.