Ronaldo defeats Messi, Ribery to emerge world best for 2013

The Portuguese defeated Messi and Ribery

Real Madrid and Portugal forward, Cristiano Ronaldo, has emerged the winner of the FIFA Ballon d’Or for 2013.

Ronaldo defeated four-time winner, Messi (Barcelona and Argentina), and Frank Ribery (Bayern Munich and France) to win the highly coveted trophy and emerge the world’s best player for 2013.

“All I can say is thank you to everybody that has been involved,” Ronaldo said as he shed tears while receiving the award.

This is the second time the Portuguese is emerging world best player after his first win in 2008.

Other award recipients at the ceremony were German goalkeeper, Nadine Angerer, who emerged the FIFA best female footballer for 2013. Jupp Heynckes, the former coach of Bayern Munich, and Germany’s women’s national team coach, Silvia Neid, won the FIFA World Coach of the Year awards for men’s and women’s football respectively.

According to the FIFA website, the award winners “were voted for by national team coaches and captains as well as by the international media representatives selected by FIFA and French football magazine France Football.”

The World football governing body also said, “The entire voting process was supervised and monitored by PricewaterhouseCoopers Switzerland (PwC).”

The FIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony was held at the Kongresshaus in Zurich, Switzerland.

The world best eleven players in various positions, FIFA FIFPro World XI, was also named, as selected by 52,000 professional footballers. No African player made the list.

Manuel Neuer (Germany) as goalkeeper; Dani Alves (Brazil), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Sergio Ramos (Spain) and Thiago Silva (Brazil) in defence; Andrés Iniesta (Spain), Franck Ribéry (France) and Xavi (Spain) in midfield; and Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Zlatan Ibrahimović (Sweden) and Lionel Messi (Argentina) up front, made the FIFA 11.

Brazilian football legend, Pelé, was awarded the FIFA Ballon d’Or Prix d’Honneur for his lifetime achievement in football; while the Afghanistan national team got the FIFA Fair Play Award.