Ballon d'Or

The Ballon d'Or ( French pronunciation:  [balɔ̃ dɔʁ]; "Golden Ball"), is an annual football award presented by France Football. It has been awarded since 1956, although between 2010 and 2015, an agreement was made with FIFA and the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year, and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or, but the partnership was ended in 2016 and the award been reversed back to Ballon d'Or while FIFA also renamed its traditional award. Conceived by sports writer Gabriel Hanot, the Ballon d'Or award honors the male player deemed to have performed the best over the previous year, based on voting by football journalists. Originally, only European players were in contention for the Ballon d'Or: in 1995 the award was expanded to include all players at European clubs and in 2007 to all players from around the world.