Ballon d'or 2021: Messi, Ronaldo lead nominations list

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo lead the way on the nominations list for the 2021 Ballon d'or. (Photo credit: Sky Sports)

Death is certain and so are taxes all over the world, but it doesn’t stop there as the football ruling body released the provisional 30 man list for the Ballon D’or nominations on Friday with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo leading the way.

Messi is aiming to extend his dominance to a 7^th title while Ronaldo will hope to level on 6 with the Argentine but the pair will have to fend off 28 other contenders which includes Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski.

Lewandowski broke Gerd Muller’s single season goal scoring record with 41 goals and the European golden shoe winner was the leading contender for the award for the year 2020 but it was cancelled altogether due to the pandemic which halted all leagues at some points.

The Ballon d'Or is a yearly award presided over by France Football. The men's award was first handed out in 1956 to England's Stanley Matthews, and the Ballon d'Or Feminin started in 2018, with Lyon’s Ada Hegerberg the inaugural winner.

It runs parallel with FIFA's The Best award, which started in 2016, carrying on from the FIFA World Player of the Year, which stopped in 2009, as the honors merged for six years to create the FIFA Ballon d'Or.

Since 2008, either Messi or Ronaldo has won the men's award in every season apart from 2018, when it was awarded to Luka Modric. Last year was the first one since its inception when there was no winner due to the outbreak of covid.