FIFA Golden

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré says that it is about time that the FIFA Ballon d’Or award started recognising more African players.

Lionel Messi is one of the favourites to win the upcoming FIFA Ballon d’Or award and Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu says that he will be the right choice.

Messi experienced vast amount of success last season. It came in the form of Champions League and domestic titles. Even though his Argentina national team came close to winning two major honours – World Cup and Copa America, Josep Maria Bartomeu says that success with Barcelona alone was not matched by any other player on the planet. They should make him a default choice to be crowned as the best player in the world.

Jonjo Shelvey, the 23-year old Swansea City player who has earned a national recall, has said that the Three Lions have set the target of topping their Euro qualifying group by winning each and every match.
The Three Lions have secured wins in the 8 games that they have played so far and are already at the top of the Group E table.

After being forced into exile from the Argentina national team squad over the last couple of years, Carlos Tevez has forced himself back into the national team reckoning after a stellar campaign with Juventus.

He has been a major reason behind the club reaching the Champions League final. The former Manchester City striker has scored 28 goals in all competitions. He is the single major goal threat for the Italian outfit. For this reason, former Juventus coach Fabio Capello reckons that Tevez should be one of the contenders for the 2015 FIFA Ballon d’Or award.

It’s probably a fanciful question to ask and, right now, the more pertinent question about Mario Balotelli is will he still be at Liverpool next season, rather than whether he will one day fulfil his ambition of being named the Ballon d’Or.

Unless he enjoys the type of super-human run of form between now and the end of the year, the like of which is the staple of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, then Balotelli will not even register as an after-thought when it comes to the naming of the next Ballon d’Or winner in early 2016.

Despite not being on the shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award since his move to Arsenal, German midfielder Mesut Ozil reckons that he can win this trophy one-day.

Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery has criticised the FIFA Ballon d’Or award as a political affairs amidst unhappiness that he was not considered as a potential winner last year. Ribery came third in the rankings for last year’s award while his Bayern Munich teammate Manuel Neuer finished in the same position for this year’s title.

The 2014 FIFA Ballon d’Or is approaching and as it starts getting closer and closer, not surprisingly it seems to be that the main contenders on winning this prestigious individual award is being fought between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo but the Portuguese forward has the edge.

Despite everything that Manuel Neuer has accomplished in the past 12 months, it seems like the German goal-keeper is not one of the favorites on lifting the trophy as he performs in a position where it’s extremely difficult to get as much recognition in comparison to a midfielder or a forward.

The shortlist for the prestigious FIFA Ballon d’Or award has been announced with several names from the Premier League managing to make it into the shortlist. The first 30 man shortlist has just been announced.

It will be reduced to a three-man shortlist before naming the winner in December. Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is the overwhelming favourite to get this award after helping his team win the Champions League and also scoring more than 50 goals along the way. A number of players in the Premier League like Diego Costa and Eden Hazard have also been named in the list.

The subject of television replays being used to doing improve football has been intensely debated over the last decade. The growing importance of matches has seen refereeing errors take centre stage more often than not. This has in turn put more pressure on referees to deliver accurate results. Fifa, which governs key aspects of the game, has been under the regime of Sepp Blatter for several years. The 78-year-old has rejected the inclusion of technology into the game claiming that it would bring disparity across different levels of the game.