The winner of the 2018 Ballon d’Or will be revealed at a glittering ceremony in Paris on Monday evening, with Croatia’s Luka Modric and a host of French World Cup winners all hoping to finally end the 10-year duopoly of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Ronaldo and Messi have dominated the award for the last decade, claiming it five times each, but the expectation is that a new name will be read out as this year’s winner at just after 9 pm at the Grand Palais, just off the Champs-Elysees.
While Ronaldo won another Champions League with Real Madrid in a typically prolific year, and Messi continues to mesmerize for Barcelona, both are now in their 30s and neither really stamped their authority on the World Cup in Russia.
However, Ronaldo and Messi could miss out this time around with speculation linking Croatian Modric with the Ballon d’Or, which will be presented at a ceremony hosted by David Ginola in Paris.
Recent evidence also goes in favour of the little playmaker, who won the Golden Ball for the best player at the World Cup before claiming UEFA’s prize for player of the season and FIFA’s best player award in September, beating Mohamed Salah and Ronaldo to the latter.
