♣ France Football

France Football is a French monthly magazine containing football news from all over the world. It is considered to be one of the most reputable sports publications in Europe, mostly because of its photographic reports, in-depth and exclusive interviews and accurate statistics of the UEFA Champions League matches, and extensive coverage of the European leagues. The magazine was first published in 1946 and is headquartered in Paris. For more than six decades it has presented the Ballon d'Or award to the best football player of the year.

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Awards

Since 1956, France Football presents the Ballon d'Or (lit. '"Golden Ball"'), initially referred to as the "European Footballer of the Year" award. Following the award's merger with the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2010, the magazine awarded the FIFA Ballon d'Or to the world's best player in partnership with FIFA, the sport's governing body, until 2016, when it resumed full ownership of the trophy. Since 1959, France Football also elects the French Player of the Year and awarded the best club team in Europe since 1968 to 1990.

French Player of the Year

The French Player of the Year is an association football award presented annually by the French magazine France Football since 1959. Originally, only French players playing in France were eligible, but starting in 1996 French players playing abroad were in contention to win the trophy. Since 2001, former winners have elected the Player of the Year.

Format

In 2023, France Football changed the format of its award by changing its time frame from the calendar year to the football season. They also decided to introduce a French Player of the Year award for women's footballers.

French Player of the Century

At the end of the 20th century, the magazine also voted on the French Player of the Century, won by Michel Platini.

French Manager of the Year

Every year, the magazine elects the best French manager of the year. The jury is composed of former laureates.

Football Player of the Century

The French weekly magazine France-Football consulted their former "Ballon D'Or" winners to elect the Football Player of the Century. Among the 34 former "Ballon D'Or" winners (from 1956 to 1999) only 30 voted: Matthews, Sivori and Best refused to vote, and Yashin was already dead at the time.

Each of the 30 voters chose 5 players: 5 points for the 1st place, 4 points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd, 2 points for 4th and 1 point for 5th. But Di Stefano only choose a 1st place, Platini a 1st and 2nd place, and Weah 2 players for 5th place (giving ½ point to each one). After each player points, between brackets is the number of votes for every place.

Légendes Africaines Top 30

Before the 2019 African Nations Cup, France Football published a special edition "Légendes Africaines Top 30". Similar to the Ballon d'Or poll 43 juries (from 42 African countries and France) sent their votes. Eligible players came from a pre-determined list of 30 players.

Each jury chose their top 5 players, and points were awarded as follows: 6-4-3-2-1

The 43 voters were from: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, DR Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and France.

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