FIFA and France Football have parted ways, which means Lionel Messi won't be able to defend his FIFA Ballon d'Or. However, FIFA have announced their own award, called Best FIFA Men's Player, and here is everything you need to know about it.
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FIFA announced the new name and a new voting system, consisting of four parties (national coaches, national captains, journalists and fans) on Tuesday.
An official release on FIFA.com explains the changes:
"The winners of The Best FIFA Men's Player and The Best FIFA Men's Coach awards will be selected by an international jury comprising the current coaches of all men's national teams (one per team), the current captains of all men's national teams (one per team), one specialist journalist from each territory represented by a national team and fans from all over the world registered on FIFA.com.
"Each of the four groups of voters within a jury has the same electoral weight irrespective of the actual number of voters in those groups (i.e. the votes of the coaches, of the captains, of the specialist journalists and the fans shall each make up one quarter of the poll, notwithstanding the number of voters in each group).
"Each member of the jury will be requested to nominate, in decreasing order of merit, the three players and three coaches who, in accordance with the criteria set out in articles 2 and 3 above, they consider most deserving of the respective Award.
"The three players and three coaches nominated by each jury member receive five points, three points or one point, respectively, depending on whether the juror places the player or coach first (five points), second (three points) or third (one point)."
While France Football have already announced 30 names for their Ballon d'Or award, which can be seen as Best Player in Europe, FIFA are yet to unveil their 23-man short list for the 2016 Best FIFA Men's Player, which was previously known as FIFA World Player of the Year.
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The final winner will announced during an award ceremony on 9 January in Zurich.
Who do you think should win the Best FIFA Men's Player this year? Have your say in the comments section below.
