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The most coveted Individual award is on the horizon as FIFA has announced the timeline for the ceremony scheduled to happen in Zurich next year in January.

The award which prizes the best football player on the planet for that calendar year has been shared between two players for the past 7 years- Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo with the pair sharing the award in the ratio 4:3 with Real Madrid talisman Cristiano Ronaldo being the winner on last two occasions.

The award according to FIFA.com is scheduled to happen in Zurich on January 11, 2016. The declarations for that will start from Monday, October 19, as a 10-woman shortlist for the Women’s World Player of the Year and another 10-woman shortlist for Women’s World Coach of the Year will be revealed.

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Then on Tuesday, 20 October, a 23-man shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or and a 10-man shortlist for the men’s World Coach of the Year award will be revealed on that day.

On Monday, 30 November, the above two lists will be whittled down to three.

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Four days earlier, on Thursday, 26 November, the 55 players nominated for the FIFA FIFPro World XI will be revealed position-by-position: Goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and the forwards.

The FIFA Ballon d’Or Gala 2015 will take place in Zurich’s Kongresshaus on Monday, 11 January, 2016 where in total eight awards will be presented.

These awards include the FIFA Ballon d’Or, the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year, the FIFA Men’s Coach of the Year, the FIFA Women’s Football Coach of the Year plus the FIFA Presidential Award, the FIFA Fair Play Award, the FIFA Puskas Award and the FIFA FIFPro World XI will be presented.

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Lionel Messi is the heavy favorite to win this year’s trophy as the Barcelona wizard produced some of his career’s best football in the current year to lead the Catalans to an unprecedented treble – their and world football’s second in the history. The Argentina captain also recently won the Best Player in Europe award where he defeated the second place Luis Suarez and third placed Cristiano Ronaldo by a huge margin of 49 votes to 3 and 2 votes respectively.

Keep checking our football section for further news regarding this grand event as we will be covering every announcement relating to the Gala.