BALLON D'OR: LIONEL MESSI CLAIMS FOURTH PLACE IN HISTORY

The 2011 FIFA Ballon d'Or awards held at Zurich, Switzerland saw humble and talented Barcelona forward, Lionel Messi win the FIFA Ballon d'Or for the third consecutive time, polling 47.88 of the votes, ahead of Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo (21.6)%) and Barcelona's Xavi (9.23%). 
24 year-old Leo as fondly called is the fourth person in history to win 3 Ballon d'Or trophies after Cruyff, Platini and Van Basten.
These awards were decided after a poll in which the captains and head coaches of the men's (for the two men's football awards) and women's (for the two women's football awards) national teams, as well as international media representatives selected by French football magazine France Football, voted for candidates in each of the four categories. Each group's votes represented one third of the final result. 
Speaking on the honour, the Argentine said, "It's a huge honour. I want to share this award with the people that voted for me and with my teammates. I'm very proud to have won the trophy three times, especially one after the other. It's hard to win one, let alone three."

List of winners
1) FIFA Ballon d'Or-Lionel Messi
2) Presidential award-Sir Alex Ferguson
3) FIFA Coach of the year award (Men's football)- Pep Guardiola
4) FIFA's Coach of the year award (Women's football)-Norio Sasaki
5) Best Goal of 2011-Neymar
6) Best Female player of 2011-Homare Sawa
7) Fairplay award-Japanese Football Association