World Cup champion Lionel Messi, his Paris Saint-Germain teammate, Kylian Mbappé, and 12 others have been nominated for the 2023 Best FIFA Men’s Player.
The nominations list for the various categories for this year’s awards were released by the world football governing body on Thursday evening.
Leading the Best FIFA Men’s Player nominations are Argentina 2022 FIFA World Cup hero Messi, Mbappé, who struck a hattrick in the World Cup final for France, and Morocco’s World Cup record maker Achraf Hakimi.
Brazil’s joint-record national team highest goalscorer Neymar is also on the list, as well as African duo of Sadio Mane and Mohammed Salah.
Other players nominated in the category are Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Vinicius Junior, Robert Lewandowski, Luka Modric, Jude Bellingham, Julian Alvarez and Karim Benzema.
For the Best FIFA Women’s Player nominations are Aitana Bonmatí, Debinha, Jessie Fleming, Ada Hegerberg, Sam Kerr, Beth Mead.
Vivianne Miedema, Alex Morgan, Lena Oberdorf, Alexandra Popp, Alexia Putellas, Wendie Renard, Keira Walsh and Leah Williamson complete the 14 nominees for the women’s category.
Voting will run until February 3, when FIFA will announce the three finalists in each categories.
