West Ham star Dimitri Payet nominated for 2016 Ballon d'Or award

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Vaishali Bhardwaj24 October 2016

West Ham forward Dimitri Payet has been nominated for the 2016 Ballon d'Or awards after his superb breakthrough year in the Premier League.

The Frenchman has impressed for the Hammers ever since arriving from Marseille last summer, and he ended his debut season in England having scored nine league goals and creating another eight for Slaven Bilic's men, which earned him a place in the PFA Team of the Year.

Payet, who also won West Ham's Hammer of the Year award and the Player of the Year gong at the London Football Awards last season, was so impressive for his club side that he forced his way into Didier Deschamps' France squad ahead of Euro 2016, where he netted three times as the hosts reached the final.

Payet now joins fellow Premier League stars Hugo Lloris, Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and Paul Pogba on the Ballon d'Or nominees.

Lionel Messi, who has won the award five of the last seven years, has also been nominated while three-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo has made the cut after winning the Champions League with Real Madrid and Euro 2016 with his nation Portugal.

This will be the first year that the Ballon d'Or will go back to being given out just by French magazine France Football after Fifa ended its association with the award.

France Football has given the best player in the world the gong every year since 1956 but, for the last six years, they handed out a Fifa Ballon d'Or gong alongside world football's governing body.

Scroll through the gallery above to see the full Ballon d'Or nominations.

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