It's official: Messi wins 2009 Ballon d'Or

It is Tuesday December 1st, 2009 and Lionel Messi has been named the Best Player in the World by France Football and all of the journalists in the world.

He beat last season's winner - Cristiano Ronaldo - by a comfortable margin.

Here are the final results from Francefootball.fr:

1. Lionel Messi (Argentine, FC Barcelone) : 473 points
2. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Manchester United puis Real Madrid) : 233 pts
3. Xavi (Espagne, FC Barcelone) : 170 pts
4. Andrès Iniesta (Espagnol, FC Barcelone) : 149 pts
5. Samuel Eto'o (Cameroun, FC Barcelone puis Inter Milan) : 75 pts
6. Kaka (Brésil, Milan AC puis Real Madrid) : 58 pts
7. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Suède, Inter Milan puis FC Barcelone) : 50 pts
8. Wayne Rooney (Angleterre, Manchester United): 35 pts
9. Didier Drogba (Côte d'Ivoire, Chelsea): 33 pts
10. Steven Gerrard (Angleterre, Liverpool) : 32 pts
11. Fernando Torres (Espagne, Liverpool): 22 pts
12. Cesc Fabregas (Espagne, Arsenal) : 13 pts
13. Edin Dzeko (Bosnie, Wolfsburg) : 12 pts
14. Ryan Giggs (Pays de Galles, Manchester United) : 11 pts
15. Thierry Henry (France, FC Barcelone) : 9 pts
16. Luis Fabiano (Brésil, FC Séville), Nemanja Vidic (Serbie, Manchester United), Iker Casillas (Espagne, Real Madrid): 8 pts
19. Diego Forlan (Uruguay, Atletico Madrid) : 7 pts
20. Yoann Gourcuff (France, Bordeaux) : 6 pts
21. Andreï Archavine (Russie, Arsenal), Julio Cesar (Brésil, Inter Milan), Frank Lampard (Angleterre, Chelsea) : 5 pts
24. Maicon (Brésil, Inter Milan) : 4 pts
25. Diego (Brésil, Werder Brême puis Juventus Turin) : 3 pts
26. David Villa (Espagne, Valence), John Terry (Angleterre, Chelsea) : 2 pts
28. Franck Ribéry (France, Bayern Munich), Yaya Touré (Côte d'Ivoire, FC Barcelone) : 1 pt
30. Karim Benzema (France, Lyon puis Real Madrid): 0 pt

Out of interest, let's compare journalists votes with those of the fans of the world who have been voting at Bestplayerintheworld.com all year. Here are our results as of today:

Lionel Messi 45% (1,575 votes)
Cristiano Ronaldo 21% (737 votes)
Steven Gerrard 6% (211 votes)
Andres Iniesta 4% (141 votes)
Kaka 3% (100 votes)
Fernando Torres 3% (95 votes)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 3% (90 votes)
Frank Lampard 2% (71 votes)
Wayne Rooney 2% (71 votes)
Andrei Arshavin 2% (59 votes)
Ronaldinho 2% (56 votes)
Cesc Fabregas 1% (35 votes)
Didier Drogba 1% (34 votes)
Xavi Hernandez 1% (29 votes)
Nemanja Vidic 1% (23 votes)
Samuel Eto'o 1% (30 votes)
Franck Ribery 1% (24 votes)
Luka Modric 1% (22 votes)
David Villa 1% (19 votes)
Robinho 1% (18 votes)
Iker Casillas <1% (16 votes)
Arjen Robben <1% (13 votes)
Karim Benzema <1% (13 votes)
Sergio (Kun) Aguero <1% (10 votes)
Petr Cech <1% (10 votes)
Gianluigi Buffon <1% (9 votes)
Ashley Young <1% (11 votes)
Emmanuel Adebayor <1% (8 votes)
Rio Ferdinand 0% (0 votes)
Mauro Matias Zarate 0% (0 votes)

Total Votes: 3,533

The biggest discrepancy of course is Xavi Hernandez. We've been talking about this situation all year. The fans don't seem to appreciate how great a player Xavi really is. As recently as last week Inter coach Jose Mourinho called him the best player in the world and France Football has him at 3rd. But our poll has him at 14th.

We'll have to figure out why that is.

In the meantime, congratulations to Lionel Messi, who is now very close to calling himself the undisputed Best Player in the World.

The final step of course is winning the FIFA World Player of the Year.

In our opinion, he should win that one too.