Modric, fans' choice for FIFA's 'The Best' award
The readers of AS have chosen Luka Modric as the deserved winner of the FIFA player of the year award, on the back of an incredible season for both club and country.
The readers of AS have chosen Luka Modric as the deserved winner of ‘The Best’, FIFA’s player of the year award, in our online poll. The Croatian and Real Madrid midfielder won with 14,227 - or 46.78% - of the votes, while in second place was Cristiano Ronaldo with 5,350 votes (17.59%). Lionel Messi came in third with 4,384 votes (14.41%), and in fourth place, earning 3,894 votes (12.8%) was Antoine Griezmann.
Far behind the top four were the other six nominees: Varane with 1,110 votes (3.65%); Mbappé, 861 votes (2.83%); Salah, 242 votes (0.8%); Hazard, 224 votes (0.74%); De Bruyne, 87 votes (0.29%); and, Kane 34 votes (0.11%).
Almost half of our 30,413 fans that participated in the AS.com survey believe Modric deserves the award on the back of an incredible season for both club and country. The Croatian won his fourth Champions League title with Real Madrid last season, and helped carry his country all the way to their first World Cup final last month in Russia, where he was also named player of the tournament.
‘The Best’ Awards
FIFA’s ‘The Best’ awards were created in 2016 and fall into six categories: Best Men’s Player, Best Women’s Player, Best Men’s Coach, Best Women’s Coach, Best Goal, and Best Fans. Ronaldo has been the Best Men’s winner for the two previous editions, ahead of Messi and Griezmann in 2016 and Messi and Neymar in 2017. FIFA also honors the best 11 players of the year in each position, with the FIFA FIFPro World11 award.
How the voting system works
The judging period for the award is 3 July, 2017 to 15 July, 2018 (the day of the World Cup final), with both dates included.
Three finalists will be chosen from the 10 nominees in each category, after a voting period held between 24 July and 10 August, in which journalists, fans, national team coaches and national team captains will participate (captains and coaches cannot vote for a player from the same national team).
The four judging groups will have the same judging weight with 25 percent each. The top three candidates in each category with the most votes will go through as finalists, where the winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in London on 24 September.
