How is the Ballon d’Or decided? The system behind the most prestigious individual award in football | OneFootball

The Ballon d’Or will be presented this evening, with many of the biggest names involving in choosing who ascends to the throne, but how exactly does it work?

The ceremony is due to take place at 21:00 CEST on Monday evening, with the great and the good of the last year of football expected. Lionel Messi is the hot favourite to pick up the big prize for the men’s award, while Barcelona and Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmati is tipped to win her first Ballon d’Or in the women’s section.

For the men’s section, 170 journalists give out 6, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points to the top five players they believe to be worthy of the award, chosen from a list put together by France Football. Meanwhile it is a selection of 50 journalists that choose the winner for the women’s award.

They select their points based on three key criteria; individual and collective performance, behaviour of the player, and their career as a whole.

While these are fairly subjective critereia, and it is almost impossible to standardise, it has become the object of desire for many footballers. The men’s award has been dominated by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for the past 15 years, but with both of the megastars playing outside of Europe these days, this could well be the end of their duopoly.