The Ballon d'Or deal between France Football and FIFA has ended, the French publication and football's governing body announced Friday. The coveted award will from now on return to its original home after France Football's agreement with FIFA finished. The next recipient will be determined by a vote of journalists — players (national team captains) and managers will no longer have a say. "The contractual agreement between FIFA and France Football expired in January. We told France Football in early August that the contract would not be renewed," the game's governing body declared. Argentina and Barcelona star Lionel Messi won the award for a record fifth time in 2015. FIFA plans to continue its annual best player award to male and female players. FIFA and France Football teamed up in 2010 since when only two players have been nominated for the title known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or — Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The first Ballon d'Or was won by Stanley Matthews, at the time with Blackpool, who beat Alfredo Di Stefano for the inaugural title in 1956. Up to 1994 only European players were eligible. The first non-European to win it was the following year, AC Milan's Liberian star George Weah. From 2007 it honored the world's best player, with FIFA under former president Sepp Blatter entering into a deal with France Football in 2010 to merge the Ballon d'Or with FIFA's best world player honor. ‘Champions League mustn't become elite' Newly appointed UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin warned Friday the Champions League should not become an exclusive club for the wealthiest, saying one of his priorities would be to examine the current system. "The Champions League cannot continue in this direction because that would lead us towards an exclusive club," Ceferin told journalists at his first news conference in Slovenia after becoming the president of the most powerful football confederation Wednesday. The Slovenian added that it will be hard to reduce the differences between wealthy and less wealthy clubs but said the recent changes in the Champions League systems were carried out without informing the public. "The biggest problem (with those changes) was the fact that nobody was informed about it, we only found out about it at the very end," Ceferin said, speaking in Slovenian. "One of the first things I'll do at my arrival there (UEFA), will be to thoroughly examine the system and to meet with the presidents of the biggest clubs and see what shall we do in the future." UEFA recently decided for the period 2018-2021 that the four top-ranked leagues — Spain, England, Germany and Italy — will have four automatic places in the lucrative Champions League. Many European nations have already urged Ceferin to take a stand on those changes. In a vote for the UEFA presidency on Wednesday, Ceferin hammered the body's vice president Michael van Praag of the Netherlands 42-13 in what many saw as a call for change. — Agencies
