As opposed to other years, this year's Ballon d'Or voting from member of the global media was rather uniform with most participants selecting Lionel Messi, Virgin van Dijk or Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo in their first three choices.

As always there were slight examples of home favouritism with Poland's Majeck Iwanski from TVP Sport voting for local lad in Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski and Guatemala journalist Franciso Aguilar Chang nailed he rather red colours to the mast in voting for four Liverpool players in his top five.

Big in Sri Lanka

Possibly the most bizarre selection of the voting process this year came from Sri Lanka with local journalist Hafiz Marikar from the Daily News giving his number one vote to Liverpool right back Trent Alexander-Arnold. Mister Marikar was clearly impressed by the 21-year-old's quick thinking was in supplying the corner which led to the winning goal over Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final at Anfield.