FIFA had the football’s annual celebration of its top performers entered a new era this Monday evening in Zurich, with the inaugural edition of The Best FIFA Football Awards™, as the official FIFA website informs. The winners of the prestigious individual awards as the best of the last 12 months are:

·         The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2016: Cristiano Ronaldo

·         The Best FIFA Women’s Player 2016: Carli Lloyd 

·         The Best FIFA Men’s Coach 2016: Claudio Ranieri 

·         The Best FIFA Women’s Coach 2016: Silvia Neid 

Football fans are at the heart of FIFA’s new award show. Not only did they take part in choosing the winners of the individual awards for the first time ever, they also had a recognition of their own. Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool supporters were chosen by other football fans from around the world and received the inaugural FIFA Fan Awardfor their unified singing of 'You’ll Never Walk Alone' in memory of those involved in the Hillsborough disaster. 

Public voting on FIFA.com also decided the most beautiful goal of the season, with Mohd Faiz Subri taking the FIFA Puskás Award 2016 trophy back home to Malaysia. 

The team of the year
The votes from over 45,000 players around the world decided the FIFA FIFPro World11, the football players’ own selection of the dream team of 2016. Here is the line-up:

Goalkeeper: Manuel Neuer
Defenders: Dani Alves, Gerard Pique, Sergio Ramos, Marcelo
Midfielders: Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Andres Iniesta
Forwards: Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Cristiano Ronaldo

Paying tribute
Atlético Nacional were chosen by a panel of football experts as the deserving recipients of the FIFA Fair Play Award 2016. The Colombian club displayed humanity and compassion in face of the tragic plane crash that befell Chapecoense – the Brazilian club they were to face in the final of the Copa Sudamericana, and to whom, they insisted that the cup be given.

The evening also featured a homage to Alessandro Rosa Vieira, known more popularly as the “king of futsal”, Falcão. Following his retirement from the national team after the FIFA Futsal World Cup Colombia 2016, the Brazilian legend was lauded with the FIFA Award for an Outstanding Career.

The awards show was held at Zurich’s TPC studios and presented by Eva Longoria and Marco Schreyl. It featured performances by ‘vocal play’ pioneers Naturally 7 and English singer-songwriter Julian Perretta. 

Key statistics:
The individual winners of The Best FIFA Football Awards 2016 were determined through a combined voting process, in which 50% of the decision was based on the votes of captains and head coaches from national teams all around the globe. The other 50% was split between an online public ballot of football fans and votes by a select group of media representatives from all around the world.

The Best FIFA Men’s Player 2016: Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo: 34.54% of total votes
Lionel Messi: 26.42% of total votes
Antoine Griezmann: 7.53% of total votes

The Best FIFA Women’s Player 2016: Carli Lloyd

Carli Lloyd: 20.68% of total votes
Marta: 16.60% of total votes
Melanie Behringer: 12.34% of total votes

The Best FIFA Men’s Coach 2016: Claudio Ranieri

Claudio Ranieri: 22.6% of total votes
Zinédine Zidane: 16.56% of total votes
Fernando Santos: 16.24% of total votes

The Best FIFA Women’s Coach 2016: Silvia Neid

Silvia Neid: 29.99% of total votes
Jill Ellis: 16.68% of total votes
Pia Sundhage: 16.47% of total votes

The voting procedure for each of the awards was supervised and monitored by the independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.

And the details from the awards decided by public voting:

The FIFA Puskás Award 2016: Mohd Faiz Subri

Mohd Faiz Subri: 59.46% of total votes
Marlone: 22.86% of total votes
Daniuska Rodriguez: 10.01% of total votes
Others: 7.68% of total votes

FIFA Fan Award 2016: Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool supporters

Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool supporters: 45.92% of total votes
Iceland supporters: 31.37% of total votes
ADO Den Haag supporters: 22.71% of total votes

Russia in this voting was represented by Stanislav Cherchesov and Igor Akinfeev (A men’s national team) and Elena Fomina and Ksenia Tsybutovich (A women’s national team).

The Russian representatives voted as follows:

Stanislav Cherchesov – Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Gianluigi Buffon (Italy);

Igor Akinfeev – Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Gareth Bale (Wales);

Elena Fomina – Marta (Brazil),  Dzsenifer Marozsan (Germany), Melani Behringer (Germany);

Ksenia Tsybutovich – Dzsenifer Marozsan (Germany), Melani Behringer (Germany), Marta (Brazil).