FIFA Ballon d’or: Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar in final shortlist

The final shortlist of three players for the prestigious FIFA Ballon d’or for 2015 has been released with the trio of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Brazilian Neymar all making the cut.

While Ronaldo will be hoping for a third successive win of the coveted award, the Barcelona duo of Neymar and Messi also looks good to dethrone the Portuguese star.

Messi has already won the Ballon d’or for a record four times while Neymar who many see as the outsider in this shortlist is eyeing his first win.

In a related development, the contenders for this year’s FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2015 Award have also been announced.

Carli Lloyd (USA/Houston Dash), Aya Miyama (Japan/Okayama Yunogo Belle), and Célia Šašić (Germany/1. FFC Frankfurt) are the trio in the running for the women’s award.

Also, 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 have also been announced. In alphabetical order, the contenders are:

Pep Guardiola (Spain/FC Bayern Munich), Luis Enrique Martínez (Spain/FC Barcelona), Jorge Sampaoli (Argentina/Chilean national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award; and Jill Ellis (USA/USA national team), Mark Sampson (Wales/English national team) and Norio Sasaki (Japan/Japanese national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award.

According to FIFA, all of 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 207 member associations as well as international media representatives selected by FIFA and France Football.

All of the awards will be presented at the FIFA Ballon d’Or award ceremony at the Kongresshaus in Zurich on 11 January 2016 during a televised show to be streamed live on FIFA.com and FIFA on YouTube.