Tonight, the Best FIFA Football Awards will be given out at a glitzy party in Paris to honor the best football performances of 2022.
The event was held for the first time on January 9, 2017. It was a rebranding of the FIFA World Player of the Year awards, which had been held from 1991 to 2009.
People sometimes mix it up with the Ballon d’Or, which is a completely different award created in 1956 by the French magazine France Football.
Between 2010 and 2015, the FIFA award and the France Football award were combined into the FIFA Ballon d’Or, which was a bit confusing. This seemed like a simple way to avoid having two award shows in the same sport that were very similar.
But in 2016, they were split up again. The FIFA Ballon d’Or went back to being called just the Ballon d’Or, and the Best FIFA Football Awards were given the name “The Best FIFA Football Awards.”
So, what are the most important differences?
The hostess
The Best FIFA Football Awards are put on by FIFA, which is the organisation in charge of football. The Ballon d’Or is put on by France Football magazine.
The moment
The Ballon d’Or was moved from the end of the year to the end of the season for the first time in 2022. The list of nominees came out in August, and the ceremony took place in October.
The FIFA Best Awards are held in January and honour the best things from the previous year.
The awards
The awards tend to change a little bit every year, but they are mostly the same at both ceremonies, with some small differences.
Both have awards for men and women, as well as prizes for goalkeepers. But the Ballon d’Or has recently added the Kopa Trophy for the best young player and the Gerd Muller Trophy for the best goalscorer. It also has a Club of the Year award.
The FIFA Best Awards honor the best men’s and women’s coaches, name the world XI, and give the Puskas Award to the player who scored the best goal of the year.
The vote
The way to figure out who wins has changed over time. Now, the editorial team at France Football makes long lists for each award and then asks a panel of journalists from all over the world to choose their top five players. First place gets six points, second place gets four points, third place gets three points, and so on. The points are added up to find a winner. Journalists are told to vote based on each player’s and the team’s performance, fair play, and the player’s career as a whole.
The FIFA Best Awards depend on the prize, but the idea is that voting should be split between national team coaches, national team captains, media representatives, and fans voting on the FIFA website, with each of these four “pillars” of the game getting 25% of the vote.
The status of
The Ballon d’Or and the Ballon d’Or Feminin are still the most prestigious awards for men’s and women’s soccer players. The men’s Ballon d’Or has been around for 67 years, which gives it more historical value and prestige than FIFA’s award.
