FIFA handed out some awards, and somewhere, I'm sure somebody cared. I wasn't one of those, as frankly, UEFA and FIFA generally do such a poor job with these things that I can't bring myself to even care.

For the fourth year running, Lionel Messi was awarded the Ballon D'Or. Congratulations to Messi, he was the clear choice as the world's best player. Ironically, he wasn't judged as the best player in UEFA this year, as the voters absolutely botched that one several months ago.

The voting process for the award is a bit of a joke though, regardless of the fact that they got the thing mostly right. The full breakdown of the voting can be found here (for those of you that care), and it's a bit humorous to read through the entire list of people that got votes.

While it's nice to see Lionel Messi being recognized for his general awesomeness, the rest of the awards were a waste of the paper (or metal) that they were printed on. Vincente Del Bosque was named as the coach of the year for guiding a heavy favorite to a tournament title that basically everyone expected them to win. FIFA then named their world eleven, which were ironically all based in La Liga. If you really care, the team can be found here. I stopped reading at Pique, but I'm told it's all Spanish based players after that.

The biggest snub from a Chelsea standpoint was Petr Cech, who was probably the best goalkeeper in club football for the last calendar year. He didn't win the Euros this summer though, so naturally he's not worthy. I have a hard time getting too worked up about it though, as I wasn't bothered enough to watch. Judging by the results, I probably won't waste my time tuning in next year either.