Aug 18, 2017 1:38 PM
Because it wasn't enough to have just one best player in the world award in football FIFA decided to split from the Ballon d'Or last year and now the sport's governing body are back with their second awards of the calendar year.
Back in January FIFA announced Cristiano Ronaldo as the first winner of 'The Best' award. You wonder just how long it took them to come up with that name, some lucky guy is no doubt paid far too much money for that.
Who knows if the Real Madrid superstar really was the best footballer in 2016 but considering he won the Champions League with Los Blancos and the Euros with Portugal it was under no doubt.
Now FIFA have announced the shortlist for this year's awards. You might think that's pretty early but the ceremony is actually set to take place on October 23rd and covers the period from 20th November 2016 to 2nd July 2017.
By holding their awards ceremony in late October FIFA will be handing out their awards long before the Ballon d'Or takes place in December as the two awards compete for the prestige they previously shared.
According to the world governing body there was originally only due to be 23 names on the shortlist but a tie in the voting led to 24 names being added to the final list, with a similar thing happening on the manager's list.
In a season without a major international tournament, other than the Confederations Cup, it's likely that Ronaldo and Real's exploits in defending the Champions League and winning La Liga will see the 32 year old defend the title.
50% of the voting is made up by international team captains and managers, 25% of the vote goes to 200 chosen journalists from the world and 25% of the vote is from the public's vote on FIFA.com.
The shortlist for the manager's award was also released: Massimiliano Allegri, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, Luis Enrique, Pep Guardiola, Leonardo Jardim, Joachim Loew, Jose Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino, Diego Simeone, Tite, Zinedine Zidane.
