THE BEST FIFA FOOTBALL AWARD 2018: Winners To Be announced Today

The other awards are for the Best Fifa goalkeeper, men’s coach, women’s coach, fan award, fair play award and Fifpro World XI.

 

Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric and Mohamed Salah are the finalists for the men’s player award for 2018 – with no place for Lionel Messi.

Ada Hegerberg, Dzsenifer Marozsan and Marta are the nominees for the women’s player award.

Gareth Bale is one of 10 candidates for the Fifa Puskas goal of the year.

The other awards are for the Best Fifa goalkeeper, men’s coach, women’s coach, fan award, fair play award and Fifpro World XI.

British actor Idris Elba and French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnet host the show at the Royal Festival Hall, which starts at 18:30 BST.

This is the third year of the Best Fifa awards after the world governing body’s six-year association with the Ballon d’Or came to an end.

Men’s player

This is the first year since 2006 that Lionel Messi has not been in the final three of Fifa’s top award – then called the Fifa World Player of the Year. It will also be the first time since 2010 that Ronaldo and Messi have not been the top two in either order.

The final three was named on 3 September – with the winners of the men’s and women’s player and coach awards being decided by 25% from national team coaches, 25% from national team captains, 25% from select media representatives and 25% online vote.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid, now Juventus and Portugal)

 

The 33-year-old – who has won both Best Fifa awards so far – is nominated after a season in which he won his fifth Champions League title. He scored 15 goals to ensure he would be top scorer in the competition for a sixth consecutive season – including a shared one in 2014-15.

He scored 44 goals in as many games in all competitions for Real Madrid – including 18 in his final 10 La Liga games. Ronaldo then scored four times at the World Cup for Portugal to make him the second top scorer in international football history.

A £99.2m move to Juventus followed this summer, where he will bid to win the Champions League with a third different side.

Luka Modric (Real Madrid and Croatia)

Modric, who is 33 like his former team-mate, enjoyed arguably the best year of his career as he too won a third consecutive Champions League trophy – before reaching the World Cup final with Croatia.

In the summer his international team-mate Dejan Lovren said: “Modric would probably be getting more attention if he was German or Spanish. He would maybe even be a Ballon d’Or winner.”

The former Tottenham midfielder won the Golden Ball award for the best player in the World Cup after their final defeat by France. He scored in their opening two matches and also set up one goal.

Mohamed Salah (Liverpool and Egypt)

The 26-year-old had the season of his career to take Liverpool to the Champions League final and Egypt to the World Cup – although he ended up without a trophy.

Following a £34m move from Roma in June 2017, he scored 44 goals in 52 games for Liverpool, winning the Premier League Golden Boot on his return to English football after a disappointing spell at Chelsea earlier in his career.

A shoulder injury suffered in the Champions League final meant he was not fully fit in Egypt’s first World Cup since 1990 – but he did still manage two goals in as many games.