As was widely expected, Cristiano Ronaldo won the top prize at the relaunched Best FIFA Football Awards tonight, writes Stephen Barry.

The prize counted votes from the captain, manager and a media representative from each country around the world, with Ronaldo netting over a third (34.54%) of total votes. That put him well ahead of Lionel Messi (26.42%) and Antoine Griezmann (7.53%) in second and third places respectively.

However, Ireland manager Martin O’Neill chose not to give his votes to any of that trio, who were also, by a distance, the top three in the Ballon d’Or vote last month.

Instead, O’Neill voted Wales star Gareth Bale as his first choice – a man O’Neill will have in his mind as Ireland prepare to face Wales in their next World Cup qualifier. His second preference went to Italian goalie Gianluigi Buffon, with French midfielder N’Golo Kante picking up O’Neill’s final vote.

Seamus Coleman was somewhat more orthodox in his selection, opting for Ronaldo, Messi and Luis Suarez as his top-three, while media representative Philip Quinn only differed by selecting Neymar as his third choice.

O’Neill’s Northern Irish counterpart Michael O’Neill went with the consensus in voting for Ronaldo, Messi and Griezmann.

As for Ronaldo and Messi’s own votes… well, they voted largely by club allegiances.

Ronaldo chose his Real Madrid teammates Bale, Luka Modric and Sergio Ramos, just as Messi picked his Barcelona colleagues Suarez, Neymar and Andres Iniesta.