HISTOY OF BALON D'OR

 

 

 

The Ballon d'Or  "Golden Ball") and often referred to as the European Footballer of the Year award, was an annual association football award. It was presented to the player who had been voted to have performed the best over the previous season. The award was conceived by France Football's chief magazine writer Gabriel Hanot, who asked his colleagues to vote for the player of the year in Europe in 1956. The inaugural winner was Stanley Matthews of Blackpool.
Originally, journalists could only vote for European players at European clubs, meaning that players like Diego Maradona (who played in European football clubs but is not European) and Pelé (who neither played for a European club nor is European) were ineligible for the award. A change in the rules in 1995 allowed non-European players to be eligible for the award if they played for a European club. The first non-European to win after the rule change was Milan's George Weah in the same year. In 2007, any player in the world became eligible, and the number of journalists allowed to vote also increased; 96 journalists from around the world chose their top five players, as opposed to the 52 Europe-based journalists in 2006.
Three players have won the award three times each: Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini and Marco van Basten. Platini is the only player to have won the award three times in a row, when he won the award from 1983 to 1985.Ronaldo became the first Brazilian to win the award in 1997, after non-Europeans were made eligible.^[With seven awards each, Dutch and German players won the Ballon d'Or the most. Italian clubs Juventus and Milan had the most winners respectively; six players have won eight awards while playing for each team.The final recipient of the Ballon d'Or was Lionel Messi, the third Argentine to win the award, but the first as an Argentine citizen.
The Ballon d'Or and the men's FIFA World Player of the Year award were merged in 2010 and the world's best male player has since been awarded the FIFA Ballon d'Or each year. UEFA created the UEFA Best Player in Europe Award in 2011, so it could keep the prestige of the old Ballon d'Or after it was merged to create the FIFA Ballon d'Or.