The nominations for the various categories of this year's awards were announced Thursday evening by the governing body of world football.
Messi, who scored a hat-trick in the World Cup final for France, Mbappé, who scored a hat-trick in the final for France, and Morocco's World Cup record holder Achraf Hakimi lead the nominees for Best FIFA Men's Player.
Neymar, who has scored more goals for Brazil's national team than any other player, is also on the list, as are the African combination of Sadio Mane and Mohammed Salah.
Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Vinicius Junior, Robert Lewandowski, Luka Modric, Jude Bellingham, Julian Alvarez, and Karim Benzema are the other nominees in this category.
For the Best FIFA Women's Player nominations are Aitana Bonmatí, Debinha, Jessie Fleming, Ada Hegerberg, Sam Kerr, Beth Mead.
The 14 nominees for the women's category are Vivianne Miedema, Alex Morgan, Lena Oberdorf, Alexandra Popp, Alexia Putellas, Wendie Renard, Keira Walsh, and Leah Williamson.
The voting period will end on February 3, at which point FIFA will unveil the three finalists in each category.
(Source: gazettengr.com)
