Rio Ferdinand backs Ballon d'Or for Lionel Messi

Rio Ferdinand believes that Lionel Messi is a deserving winner of the Ballon d'Or award.

By Liam Apicella, Features Editor | 09 January 2012

Manchester United centre-back Rio Ferdinand believes that it was the correct decision to hand Lionel Messi the FIFA Ballon d'Or award for the third successive year.

The Barcelona playmaker was announced as the winner at an award ceremony in Zurich earlier this evening.

"Messi is Fifa Ballon d'Or 2011 and rightly so, Ronaldo + Xavi have been quality but this guy was on another planet," Ferdinand wrote on Twitter.

Messi scored as Barcelona defeated Ferdinand's United 3-1 in the 2011 Champions League final.

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	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Arsenal	35	25	5	5	85	28	57	80
2	Manchester City Man City	34	24	7	3	82	32	50	79
3	Liverpool	35	22	9	4	77	36	41	75
4	Aston Villa	35	20	7	8	73	52	21	67
5	Tottenham Hotspur Spurs	33	18	6	9	67	52	15	60
6	Manchester United Man Utd	34	16	6	12	52	51	1	54
7	Newcastle United Newcastle	34	16	5	13	74	55	19	53
8	West Ham United West Ham	35	13	10	12	56	65	-9	49
9	Chelsea	33	13	9	11	63	59	4	48
10	Bournemouth	35	13	9	13	52	60	-8	48
11	Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolves	35	13	7	15	48	55	-7	46
12	Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton	34	11	11	12	52	57	-5	44
13	Fulham	35	12	7	16	51	55	-4	43
14	Crystal Palace	35	10	10	15	45	57	-12	40
15	Everton	35	12	8	15	37	48	-11	36
16	Brentford	35	9	8	18	52	60	-8	35
17	Nottingham Forest Nott'm Forest	35	7	9	19	42	62	-20	26
18	Luton Town Luton	35	6	7	22	48	77	-29	25
19	Burnley	35	5	9	21	38	70	-32	24
R	Sheffield United Sheff Utd	35	3	7	25	34	97	-63	16