Cristiano Ronaldo added another trophy to his ever-growing collection as he was crowned player of the year at the inaugural Best Fifa Football Awards in Zurich, beating Messi of Barcelona and Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann.
It caps a remarkable year for the 31-year-old Real Madrid star. "As well as scoring the decisive penalty in the shootout to win the Champions League, rescuing Real with a hat-trick in the final of the Club World Cup, captaining Portugal to Euro 2016 glory and being recognised with a fourth Ballon d'Or, he now has something Messi does not - the honour of being named best Fifa men's player," says the BBC.
Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri was also honoured as coach of the year, while US co-captain Carli Lloyd was named female player.
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The event was not free of controversy, however, as Barcelona stopped four of their players, including Messi, from attending, reports The Times.
The players had been due to attend after being picked by their fellow professionals in a world XI.
They pulled out because Barca are preparing for a cup tie on Wednesday, although the Times says:
"There was speculation that Barcelona’s decision was made because the world player award was given to Cristiano Ronaldo, the Real Madrid forward, rather than Messi."
The rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi was evident in the two players' voting for the event. Asked to pick their top three players, they both overlooked each other.
"With political choices that have something of the Eurovision about them, not only did Ronaldo and Messi snub each other as their first choices, they didn't even put each other in their top three. Instead, both picked their Real Madrid and Barcelona team-mates. Ronaldo's top three were Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Sergio Ramos, while Messi's were Luis Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta," reports the Daily Telegraph.
There were also some oddities in the voting, which was carried out by the captains and coaches of national teams, plus media and fans, with the Telegraph saying the Turks and Caicos Islands picked Jamie Vardy as its choice for player of the year.
However, Fifa's world team of the year provided "a slap in the face for English football", says the Daily Mail, with not one Premier League star in the XI. Indeed, the line-up was another Real Madrid and Barcelona carve-up.
Bayern Munich keeper Manuel Neuer was the only choice without a connection to the two Spanish sides. Five of the team come from Los Galacticos and four from the Catalan - the remaining player, Dani Alves, left Barca for Juventus in the summer.
However, there was no room for Bale or Griezmann in the team.
