Luka Modric was the clear winner for the 2018 Ballon d'Or award but there were some utterly ridiculous shouts from journalists who were allowed to vote.
The Croatian, who won the FIFA Best Men's Player in September, was in first place for every continent bar South America and collected the prize at a ceremony in Paris on Monday evening.
The oldest recipient of the award, Modric becomes the first player in history to be awarded the World Cup Golden Ball, UEFA Men's Player, FIFA Best Men's Player and Ballon d'Or in the same year.
Advert
What's more, the former Spurs midfielder has ended 10 years of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo running riot.
The Ballon d'Or has been awarded by France Football magazine since 1956 and sees their editorial staff put together the 30-man shortlist.
Advert
For the next stage of the vote, leading journalists from all over the globe (one vote per nation) are afforded their say. The vast majority voted sensibly but of course there had to be some madness.
Sport Witness posted a graphic showing how each country voted as per their one representative. England's man, Henry Winter of The Times, went for Modric, Ronaldo, Messi, Griezmann and Varane as his top five but the folks from St Kitts, Central African Republic and Kyrgyzstan went very left-field with their choices.
Merv-Ann Thompson from St Kitts had a bizarre top five of Neymar, Sergio Ramos, Luis Suarez, Alisson and Sergio Aguero, Bishkek Taras Hlypenko of Kyrgyzstan voted for Thibaut Courtois as the winner and then Albert Stanislas Koumbobako from the Central African Republic opted for Karim Benzema because why not?!
People are always going to have issues with the Ballon d'Or voting but the aforementioned choices are on another level.
Advert
Still, nothing will ever compare to the time Roy Hodgson voted for Javier Mascherano in 2015 when the award was merged with FIFA.
Topics: Football News, Football, Croatia, Neymar, Ballon d'Or, Karim Benzema, Thibaut Courtois, Luka Modric
