Somewhat predictably Lionel Messi won the FIFA Ballon d'Or which is an amalgam of their player of the year award and the Ballon d'Or.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9356019.stm

He was up against his Barcelona team mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez who from a personal point of view I would rather have seen win. Without doubt Messi is one of the greatest players at the moment and many commentators would label him as the best in the World and it is hard to argue against that based on his domestic form with Barcelona. However if everybody has already made their subjective decision that he is the best in the World then that makes this award redundant as we can assume that he, or a select few at least, will always be guaranteed the prize. That is why I would rather some acknowledgement of actual achievements during the season as domestic trophies aside Messi won neither Champions League or World Cup. To simply look at his goalscoring record is unfair, no matter how impressive, as that rules out defenders and goalkeepers from the vote but then strikers tend to be disproportionate in such awards - the top goalscorer is often feted but not many keepers pick up a prize for most clean sheets in a tournament.
   As World Cup winners Iniesta and Xavi were the star players in the best international team and it is hard to choose between the two with the former having the slight edge for scoring the winning goal in the final (decided by goals again but I never claimed they should be ignored).