FIFA Organization

In case you missed it – which, if you are on this website there is little chance of that – Lionel Messi was voted the 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or winner Monday, his fifth time winning the award.

The Ballon d'Or is chosen by the national team coaches and captains of every FIFA nation, plus selected media members. In a shocking instance of not being an uber-secretive corrupt sh*thole, FIFA has published the ballot of each voter.

Because this is international soccer, weird stuff happened with those ballots. We took a look at the worst of the lot.

Lionel Messi is your 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or winner. Oh, come on, who did you think it was going to be?

Carli Lloyd has won the award for FIFA Women’s World Player Of The Year 2015. 

The Houston Dash and USWNT midfielder won the 2015 Women’s World Cup with the United States. She scored an absolutely stunning hat trick in the first half of the final against Japan; it was one of the most dominant displays in a final a player has ever put forth.

Lloyd beat out the likes of finalists Aya Miyama of Japan and Celia Sasic of Germany. 

“This has been a dream of mine,” Lloyd said as she accepted the award. Lloyd was visibly emotional as she said her acceptance speech. 

Of the three nominees for the 2015 FIFA Puskas Award, Wendell Lira is the one we least-expected to win. Nothing against him, it's just one of the other two nominees is the most popular player in the world and the other scored his goal in the Champions League.

Then again, maybe it's not that surprising, because this is the goal he scored:

Wendell Lira Goal

Luis Enrique has won the award for FIFA Coach Of The Year For Men’s Football 2015. Enrique won the treble with FC Barcelona in 2015 as he guided his team to titles in La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League. 

Enrique beat out two other finalists for the award, Pep Guardiola of FC Bayern Munich and Jorge Sampaoli of the Chilean national team.

Jill Ellis is starting 2016 on a high note, thanks to what she did in 2015.

Ellis was named the 2015 FIFA Women's Coach of the Year for guiding her USWNT squad to the 2015 World Cup totle in Canada. She was quick to shift the credit to ther USWNT players.

"I truly believe this team won the award," Ellis said at the FIFA Ballon d'Or gala.

Ellis's USWNT team started out slowly at the World Cup, but found their stride in the knockout stage and obliterated Japan in the final, 5-2.

The FIFA FIFPro World XI has just been announced, and as expected it is full of Real Madrid and Barcelona players.

Goalkeeper

Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich)

Defenders

Thiago Silva (Paris Saint-Germain)

Marcelo (Real Madrid)

Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)

Dani Alves (Barcelona)

Midfielders

Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)

Luka Modric (Real Madrid)

Paul Pogba (Juventus)

Forwards

Neymar (Barcelona)

Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

The FIFA Ballon d’Or is the biggest award a soccer player can win based on an individual performance. Every year, the best players and coaches around the world gather together to find out who is the best player, the best female player, best coach and the FIFpro World XI — the best starting line-up in the world.

A few months ago, FIFA released a 50-players list of nominees for the award so, how do we get from there to the final three nominees that traveled to the Gala in Zurich?

Yaya Touré blasted the African confederation for not awarding him the African Player of the Year award, the Ivory Coast starlet finishing second to Gabon and Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. 

In a startling outburst, Touré reportedly labelled the decision as “pathetic”, “indecent” and one that “brings shame” to Africa.