Ballon d’Or: How voting works and winner is decided for footballer prize

The Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual prize in football, is awarded annually by France Football magazine to the player perceived to be the best in the world.

The winner is chosen through a dual system of voting.

Firstly, journalists from France Football and fellow French publication L’Equipe work together to produce a combined list of 30 official nominees, based on players’ performances in the previous season. This initial selection process sometimes also includes a small number of former players.

Then, one football journalist from each of the top 100 Fifa-ranked nations is invited to cast votes for their top 10 players in order from that shortlist. The 10 players are awarded 15, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 point based on ranking.

Once all journalists have submitted their top 10s, points are tallied and the winner of the Ballon d’Or is the player who accrued the most points in the voting, while the rest are ranked from second to 30th.

If players are tied on points, they are separated by the number of first place votes they received. If they are still level, the number of second place votes are used, and so on.

Journalists taking part in the vote are encouraged to consider three factors: