Player of the year award

Five awards were presented throughout the evening, with the Rookie of the Year, Forward of the Year, Back of the Year and Player of the Year all decided by the Crusaders coaching group.

One further award, the Champion Crusader of the Year, is a peer-voted award recognising a player's overall contribution to the team environment both on and off the field.

21-year-old prop Tamaiti Williams was named Rookie of the Year following an impressive debut season for the club, while Crusaders vice-captains Codie Taylor and David Havili won Forward and Back of the Year, respectively.

Italian Claudio Ranieri won the coach of the year award for leading outsiders Leicester City to the English Premier League title.

The 31-year-old Ronaldo was rewarded for a year in which he won the Champions League with his club Real Madrid and then Euro 2016 with Portugal.

Messi was second in the vote and Frenchman Antoine Griezmann third.

"I'm very happy and I can say that 2016 was the best year of my career," said Ronaldo as he was presented the award by FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

The annual ceremony in Zurich, which until last year was jointly organised with France Football and known as the Ballon d'Or, would be renamed "The Best FIFA Football Awards" following a split with the French magazine, a FIFA statement said.

Under the new system, half the votes would belong to the players and coaches of the world's 211 national teams and half to the public, who will take part via an online ballot, and selected media representatives.