Record .. Messi crowned the sixth golden ball in his career

Barcelona captain Lionel Messi has won the sixth Golden Ball of his career, presented by France Football magazine for the best player of the year.

Messi, who won the gold medal, broke the partnership with his Portuguese rivals Cristiano Ronaldo, who has five gold balls and finished third this season, while Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk came second.

The award was presented to Croatian star Luka Modric, who won the award last season.

Messi led his team to the La Liga title, the King's Cup final and the Champions League semi-finals.

Messi was previously awarded the award in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015.

The award went through a number of stages throughout its history, and was initially awarded only to European players, and then became a progress for players active in Europe, before opening it to compete against all players from different regions of the world.

There have also been changes in the way the winner is selected, especially during the period when the award was awarded in partnership between FIFA and the French magazine between 2010 and 2016, where national team coaches and leaders and journalists were involved in determining the winner.

After the return of France Football and the separation of FIFA with its own prize, it became confined to journalists in choosing the winner of the Golden Ball.

A journalist from each country is selected to arrange a list of five players from a list of 30 candidates identified by the magazine.

Players receive points according to their rankings, with the player at the top of the list getting six points and his runner-up four, then three points for the third, two points for the fourth, and one point for the fifth.

In case of a tie in points between more than one player is used to refer to the number of times the name of the player in the first place, and if the tie continues to count the presence times in the second place, and then calculate the presence times in the third place if the tie continues, to organize a special referendum between the draws to choose The winner is one of them, if not decided through the previous steps.