The 30 Ballon d'Or nominees

Patrick Power 6 years ago 22.1k |

Reading time: minutes

30 possible winners. AFP

The Ballon d'Or nominations for 2017 have been announced, and include some familiar faces as well as some more unexpected new stars.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann, the three podium finishers in last year's Ballon d'Or, have been named among the 30 nominees for the 2017 edition of the honour.

The fourth and fifth batches of nominations released by award organisers France Football included Barcelona star Messi and Atletico Madrid's Griezmann, who finished second and third respectively in 2016.

Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Paris Saint-Germain star Edinson Cavani, Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, Madrid duo Karim Benzema and Toni Kroos, Liverpool winger Sadio Mane, Monaco forward Radamel Falcao and Bayern Munich's Mats Hummels have also made the cut.

Six separate quintets of nominees were named throughout the day on Monday.

Paulo Dybala, Neymar, Luka Modric, Marcelo and N'Golo Kante were the first names to be released, followed by a group containing Dries Mertens, Luis Suarez, Sergio Ramos, Philippe Coutinho and Jan Oblak.

They were then joined in the final 30 by Harry Kane, Robert Lewandowski, Kevin De Bruyne, David de Gea and Edin Dzeko.

Last year's award, which was the first since France Football and FIFA's collaboration ended, was won by Cristiano Ronaldo, ahead of Messi and Griezmann.

The Portuguese ace was named in the final round, along with Eden Hazard, Leonardo Bonucci and Real Madrid teammate Isco Alarcon. PSG's teenage star Kylian Mbappe also made the cut.