The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award given annually to the male and female player who were thought to be the best in the world, based on votes by coaches and captains of international teams. In a voting system based on positional voting, each coach had three votes, worth five points, three points and one point, and the winners were ordered based on total number of points.
The award started in 1991 for men and 2001 for women. During the award's duration, European-based Brazilian players dominated the male awards, winning 8 out of 18 editions of the prize, far ahead of the second country France, which won it three times.
The award's youngest winner, male or female, was Ronaldo, who won at the age of 20 in 1996. He won it again in 1997 and 2002. Marta is the only player to win it five times in a row; Birgit Prinz won three times in a row, while Ronaldo, Mia Hamm and Ronaldinho won twice in a row. Marta is the only five-time winner, while Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, and Prinz have won the award three times. The oldest winner is Fabio Cannavaro who won in 2006 at age 33. The oldest female winner is Hamm, who won in 2002 at age 30, and the youngest female winner is Marta, who won in 2006 at age 20 (seven months older than Ronaldo in 1996).
In 2010, the FIFA World Player of the Year and France Football's Ballon d'Or award were merged and the world's best player has since been awarded the FIFA Ballon d'Or each year.
Read more about FIFA World Player Of The Year: Nomination and Selection Process
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—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
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—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)