Nominees for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2014 awards revealed


The contenders for this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the best player of 2014 and for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2014 award were announced today on FIFA.com, francefootball.fr and YouTube.


In alphabetical order, the FIFA Ballon d’Or nominees are: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Manuel Neuer (Germany), while Nadine Kessler (Germany), Marta (Brazil) and Abby Wambach (USA) will contest the women’s award. 


The candidates for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football awards were also announced. In alphabetical order, the contenders are: Carlo Ancelotti (Italy/Real Madrid CF), Joachim Loew (Germany/German national team) and Diego Simeone (Argentina/Atletico de Madrid) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award, and Ralf Kellermann (Germany/VfL Wolfsburg), Maren Meinert (Germany/Germany U-19 and U-20 national teams) and Norio Sasaki (Japan/Japan national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award.

All the nominees were confirmed after a voting process which was open to the captains and head coaches of the men’s and women’s national teams of the 209 member associations as well as to international media representatives selected by FIFA and France Football voted for candidates.
The percentages of the collected votes are as follows (number of votes/number of associations):
 
  • Voting for men’s awards:
Member associations (captains & coaches): 87%
Media representatives: 94%

  • Voting for women’s awards:
Member associations (captains & coaches): 83%
Media representatives: 77%
The voting procedure for each of the awards is supervised and monitored by the independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.
The shortlist of 15 forwards for the FIFA FIFPro World XI was also announced, completing the final shortlist of 55 players also featuring five goalkeepers, 20 defenders and 15 midfielders.

  • The forward shortlist is (home country, club):
Sergio Aguero (Argentina/Manchester City FC); Gareth Bale (Wales/Real Madrid CF); Karim Benzema (France/Real Madrid CF); Diego Costa (Spain/Chelsea FC); Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal/Real Madrid CF); Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden/Paris St-Germain FC); Robert Lewandowski (Poland/FC Bayern Munich); Lionel Messi (Argentina/FC Barcelona); Thomas Muller (Germany/FC Bayern Munich); Neymar (Brazil/FC Barcelona); Marco Reus (Germany/Borussia Dortmund); Arjen Robben (Netherlands/FC Bayern Munich); Franck Ribery (France / FC Bayern Munich); Wayne Rooney (England/Manchester United FC); Luis Suarez (Uruguay/FC Barcelona). 


See the full list on FIFA.com

In addition, the three nominees for the FIFA Puskás Award for the “most beautiful goal of the year” were announced. The three final goals are: Stephanie Roche - 20 October 2013, Peamount United v Wexford Youths, BEWNL (Ireland Republic); James Rodriguez - 28 June 2014, Colombia v Uruguay, 2014 FIFA World Cup™; Robin van Persie - 13 June 2014, Spain v Netherlands, 2014 FIFA World Cup™. 

Watch the video below
 
All the awards will be presented at the FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on the 12th of January 2015 during a televised show to be streamed live on FIFA.com and FIFA on YouTube.

In addition to the above awards, the recipient of the FIFA Presidential Award and the winner of the FIFA Fair Play award will also be revealed during the award ceremony.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Photo: Meet Nigeria's New Service Chiefs

Image
President Mohammadu Buhari on Monday sacked and replaced the country’s Service Chiefs. The new ones include, Major-General Abayomi Gabriel Olonishakin – Chief of Defence Staff; Major-General T.Y. Buratai – Chief of Army Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas – Chief of Naval Staff, Air Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar – Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Monday Riku Morgan – Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General Babagana Monguno (rtd.) – National Security Adviser. See photo collage after the cut,...
Read more

Motivational Monday: Live your dreams

Image
Good evening my JAB peeps, its that day of the week where I share some inspiring words to keep our head high even through the turbulent waters. Today we would be talking about Living our dreams and the prime obstacle to that is FEAR. You can either live your dreams or live your fear. I think that many people are not living their dreams. But are living their fears. So I want to ask you a question. Why are you living in fear? What are you afraid? We all have fears, we all have something that is blocking, or holding us back. And as we begin to realize that, you see that most people are not living their true potentials. They are not doing all the thing they want to do. Its all because of fear. Some people call fear (False evidence or expectations appearing as real). Make a decision today that you are going to box and bury your fears. Decide that you going to live life on a new level. Seeking out new horizons. That you are going to find more love, more joy and more ways to give b...
Read more

Naira now 241 against US$1

Image
  The naira hit another record low of N241 against the dollar at the parallel market on Monday as the Central Bank of Nigeria’s restrictions on foreign exchange sale fuelled unofficial trade in dollars, Reuters reported. Financial experts say the ban placed by CBN on importers from accessing Nigerian foreign exchange markets for the importation of 41 items has led to the volatility of the Naira-Dollar exchange rate at the black market.
Read more