The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French magazine France Football since 1956 to honour the player deemed to have performed the best over the previous season.
Conceived by sports writers Gabriel Hanot and Jacques Ferran, the Ballon d'Or was based exclusively on voting by football journalists up until 2006. Originally, it was awarded only to players from Europe and was widely known as the European Footballer of the Year award. In 1995, the Ballon d'Or was expanded to include all players of any origin that have been active at European clubs.