2017 Best FIFA Awards: Cristiano Ronaldo wins again
The Real Madrid and Portugal forward, Cristiano Ronaldo has been named world’s best male player at the 2017 Best FIFA Football Awards in London.
Cristiano beat Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Paris St-Germain’s Neymar to win the highly contested tittle, FIFA’s best male player for the second consecutive time.
The Real Madrid star was presented the award by Diego Maradona and his Brazilian namesake on Monday 23rd October 2017 in a ceremony organised at the London Palladium.
The vote was carried out amongst national team players, coaches, media and fans .
Christian Ronaldo has been conferred the title five times in all.
He was credited with 43.16% of the total vote.
Thank you a lot guys for voting for me,’ Ronaldo said after picking up the award. ‘(I would like) to give a mention to Leo (Messi) and Neymar for being here.
He also thanked Real Madrid supporters, his team-mates, coach, President for their support through out the year so.
“We are in England for the first time and I win consecutive awards so I’m really glad, it’s a great moment for me. FIFA give the opportunity to fans, I know I have fans all over the world (so) thanks for the support, I appreciate it… I’m so happy, thank you very much”.
Other footballers who received awards include;
-Best Female Player Award: Lieke Martens of Barcelona and the Netherlands
– Best Men’s Coach: Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane
-Best Female Coach: Netherlands’ Sarina Wiegman
-Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud received the Puskas award for the best goal of 2017 for his ‘scorpion kick’ against Crystal Palace in January. He succeeds Mohd Faiz Subri as 2017 FIFA Puskás Award winner.
-Best Goalkeeper: Gianluigi Buffon
-Celtic were given the fan award while the former Slovacko striker Togolese born, Francis Koné received the fair play trophy.
Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon replaced Bayern Munich’s Manuel Neuer, while AC Milan’s Leonardo Bonucci replaced Barcelona’s Gerard Pique in defence and PSG forward Neymar came in for Luis Suarez in attack.
The line-up featured five players from Real Madrid, two from Barcelona, two from PSG, one from Juventus and one from AC Milan. No Premier League players were included.
The FIFA FIFPro World11 2017 as voted by thousands of professional players was revealed at the Best FIFA Football Awards ceremony as follows:
GoalKeepper : Gianluigi Buffon;
Defenders: Dani Alves, Sergio Ramos, Leonardo Bonucci, Marcelo;
Midfielders: Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Andres Iniesta;
Forward: Lionel Messi,Neymar,Cristiano Ronaldo.
FIFA’s 12-monthly gala witnessed changes since last year; from 2010 until 2015 it was known as the Fifa Ballon d’Or and organised in tandem with France Football, but that arrangement subsequently ended
Benly Anchunda