What is the difference between the Ballon d’Or and The Best Fifa Awards?

The awards by France Football and Fifa are decided in different ways and carry different prestige too

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have made a habit of winning the biggest prizes (Getty Images)

The Best Fifa Football Awards take place tonight as 2022’s football exploits are celebrated at a glamorous Paris ceremony.

The event was first held on 9 January 2017, as a rebranded revival of Fifa’s World Player of the Year awards which began in 1991 and ceased in 2009.

It is sometimes confused with the Ballon d’Or, an entirely separate prize set up by French magazine France Football in 1956.

Confusingly, the Fifa award and the France Football award merged to briefly become the Fifa Ballon d’Or between 2010 and 2015. This seemed like a simple solution which avoided having two very similar awards ceremonies in the same sport.

However, they were separated once again in 2016 and Fifa went with the simultaneously simple and instantly forgettable name of ‘The Best Fifa Football Awards’, while the Fifa Ballon d’Or returned to being just the Ballon d’Or.

So what are the key differences between the two?

The host

Fifa, football’s governing body, hosts The Best Fifa Football Awards, while France Football magazine runs the Ballon d’Or.

The timing

In 2022, for the first time, the Ballon d’Or was shifted to be at the end of the season rather than the end of the year. Nominations were announced in August and the ceremony was held in October.

The Fifa Best Awards are being held in January, and celebrate the previous calendar year.

The prizes

The awards tend to change slightly each year but are broadly similar across both ceremonies, although there are some slight differences.

Both have separate men’s and women’s awards and goalkeeper prizes. But the Ballon d’Or has recently introduced a young player award (Kopa Trophy) and an outstanding goalscorer award (Gerd Muller Trophy), as well as a Club of the Year.

The Fifa Best Awards recognise the best coaches from the men’s and women’s game, announce world XIs, and give out the Puskas Award for the year’s best goal.

Alexia Putellas won the women’s Ballon d’Or for the second successive year (Francois Mori/AP) (AP)

The voting

The process of deciding who wins has evolved over the years. Nowadays the editorial team at France Football select longlists for each award and then turn to a panel of journalists from across the world to choose their top five players. First place receives six points, then four for second, three for third and so on, and the points are tallied up to calculate a winner. Journalists are told to vote based on individual and collective performances, fair play and an overall view of the player’s career.

The Fifa Best Awards differ depending on the prize, but the idea is for voting to be split between national team coaches, national team captains, media representatives and fans voting on the Fifa website, with each of those four “pillars” of the game getting a 25% say in the outcome.

The prestige

The Ballon d’Or and Ballon d’Or Feminin remain the ultimate individual prizes in the men’s and women’s game. The men’s Ballon d’Or dates back 67 years, giving it greater historic significance and added esteem, while Fifa’s version began much later.