Fifa Ballon d'Or: Lionel Messi's brother mocks Cristiano Ronaldo by comparing the trophy haul of the duo

The Barcelona and Real Madrid forwards are in the running for the Fifa Ballon d'Or, although Franck Ribery is the favourite to win the prize

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo pictured in October's El Clasico (GETTY IMAGES)

While it's not exactly on the sophisticated level of campaigning seen for the Best Picture award at the Oscars, it would seem the brother of Lionel Messi has taken it upon himself to give his sibling a boost in the running for the Fifa Ballon d'Or award.

The most coveted individual prize will be handed out in January, and the winner of the award since the Fifa World Player of the Year prize merged with the Ballon d'Or three years ago is in serious danger of losing his mantel.

Bookmakers put Franck Ribery as the favourite following his role in Bayern Munich's treble winning season, while Cristiano Ronaldo is also in the running.

It is the latter that Matias Messi appeared to take a swipe at using Twitter. The brother of the Argentina international tweeted a graphic that compared the trophy haul of Messi and Ronaldo since 2009 - a comparison with one clear winner.

(@_MatiasMessi / Twitter)

Matias also tweeted a picture of his brother sitting with many of his trophies.

(@_MatiasMessi / Twitter)

The mocking of Ronaldo comes a day after Fifa posted descriptions of the 23 nominees for the award on their website, in which Ronaldo's write up appeared only to highlight he had scored less La Liga goals than Messi - despite actually scoring 17 more than his rival in total.

Ronaldo has also been at odds with Sepp Blatter in recent weeks, after the Fifa president was forced to apologise to the Real Madrid forward after mocking his image, and not talking about his footballing talent when asked to compare him to Messi.

Ronaldo, who is in action for Portugal in the World Cup play-off against Sweden tonight, earlier this week took time out to promote his new range of underwear.