Never an organisation to spurn the opportunity to have a right big shindig, FIFA hosted their all-new ‘Best FIFA Football Awards’ in Zurich on Monday night, with Cristiano Ronaldo pipping perennial rival Lionel Messi to the ‘World’s Best Player’ gong.
Having ended their association with France Football’s Ballon D’or awards last year, FIFA created these new awards, with the first edition a typically swanky occasion.
Ronaldo enjoyed an incredible 2016, winning the Champions League with Real Madrid and EURO 2016 with Portugal as well as picking up the Ballon d’Or in December.
The superstar beat fellow nominees Messi and Antoine Griezmann to the new award while USA star Carli Lloyd won the gong for best female player.
Having led Leicester to a shock Premier League win in 2015/16, Claudio Ranieri deservedly picked up the best men’s coach award, with former Germany boss Silva Neid named the best women’s coach.
Penang FA and Malaysia midfielder Mohd Faiz Subri won the Puskas award for the best goal of 2016 for this incredible effort…
Malaysia’s Mohd Faiz Subri wins #TheBest Puskas Award! Unreal freekick goal! pic.twitter.com/z9FgH2CeB8
— Deji Kofi Faremi (@deejayfaremi) January 9, 2017
The FIFA FIFPro team of the 2016 was also named, with Real Madrid and Barcelona players dominating the line-up…
Not a bad side!
Liverpool fans, along with their Borussia Dortmund counterparts, picked up the Fan Award for this incredible rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone at Anfield in April, the day before the 27th anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy…
In case you want to know, the voting for the player and manager awards came from a mixture of national team captains and coaches, journalists and an online poll of fans.
Can’t really argue with the winners, can we?