Lionel Messi is named Globe Soccer’s Player of the Year for the first time as Barcelona emerge with the Best Club award.
Messi’s return to form in 2015 saw him usurp Cristiano Ronaldo, who had won the accolade last year, while Barca’s haul of five trophies was also worthy of the Best Media Attraction in Football and Josep Maria Bartomeu being honoured as Best President.
“I’ve always said that the collective trophies are most important, but so are the individual ones,” the No 10 said upon collecting his award.
“It’s hard to pick the best moment of 2015. It was a very complete year, in which we won practically everything we played for. It’s difficult, so I’ll take the entire year.”
Messi will now look to make it a clean sweep of individual prizes, having also won La Liga’s best player award for the past 12 months, with his fifth FIFA Ballon d’Or on January 11.
However, Luis Enrique was overlooked for Best Coach of the Year, with Belgium’s Marc Wilmots being preferred, while La Masia lost out to Benfica for Best Academy of the Year.
Best Player: Lionel Messi
Best Club: Barcelona
Best Media Attraction: Barcelona
Best President: Josep Maria Bartomeu
Best Coach: Marc Wilmots
Best Academy: Benfica
Best Careers: Andrea Pirlo and Frank Lampard
Best Agent: Jorge Mendes
Best Referee: Ravshan Irmatov
Best Player of the Arab League: Yaser Alshahrani
