Croatia captain Luka Modric, who faced the Super Eagles at the 2018 World Cup, was named Ballon d'Or winner in Paris on Monday, ending a decade of duopoly between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who have both won five times.

Established in 1956, the Ballon d'Or is awarded to the best player on the planet for the whole calendar year and those in charge of voting are international journalists, who allocate points to five players.

Modric was chosen as the Ballon d'Or winner with 753 points ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo (478 points), Antoine Griezmann (414 points), Kylian Mbappé (347 points), Lionel Messi (280 points) and Mohamed Salah (188 points) in that order.

Ex-Flying Eagles Media Officer Samm Audu, who voted on behalf of Nigeria, did a good job in picking the top five players for the award.

He gave his first vote to Modric, his second went to Griezmann, third to Ronaldo while Messi and Salah placed fourth and fifth on his list.

No Nigeria international was included in the top thirty Ballon d'Or 2018 list .

PSG's France World Cup winner Kylian Mbappe  lifted the new Kopa trophy as the first winner of the Ballon d'Or U21 award while Lyon's Ada Hegerberg won the women's Ballon d'Or.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel

Photo Credit : francefootball.fr