Salah battles Modric, Ronaldo for FIFA best Footballer award

Juventus’ Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates after he scored his first goal since he joined Juventus during the Italian Serie A football match Juventus vs Sassuolo on September 16, 2018 at the Juventus stadium in Turin. / AFP PHOTO / Miguel MEDINA

The world’s best male and female footballers will be named at the Best Fifa Football Awards in London today.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric and Mohamed Salah are the finalists for the men’s player award for 2018 – with no place for Lionel Messi.

Ada Hegerberg, Dzsenifer Marozsan and Marta are the nominees for the women’s player award.

Gareth Bale is one of 10 candidates for the Fifa Puskas goal of the year.

The other awards are for the Best Fifa goalkeeper, men’s coach, women’s coach, fan award, fair play award and Fifpro World XI.

British actor Idris Elba and French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnet host the show at the Royal Festival Hall, which starts at 6:30 p.m.

This is the third year of the Best Fifa awards after the world governing body’s six-year association with the Ballon d’Or came to an end.

This is the first year since 2006 that Lionel Messi has not been in the final three of Fifa’s top award – then called the Fifa World Player of the Year.

It will also be the first time since 2010 that Ronaldo and Messi have not been the top two in either order.

The final three was named on September 3- with the winners of the men’s and women’s player and coach awards being decided by 25 per cent from national team coaches, 25 per cent from national team captains, 25 per cent from select media representatives and 25 per cent online vote.