Cristiano Ronaldo to miss the FIFA Best Player awards

Juventus winger Cristiano Ronaldo is all set to give The Best Football Awards 2018 Gala, which is scheduled to take place in London later today, a miss. The Best FIFA Player award was demerged from the FIFA Ballon d'Or a couple of years back, and now both the awards are independently awarded to winners of the respective categories. The Best FIFA Player award is given to the football who has done exceedingly well over the course of a year.

Ronaldo has been named in the three-man shortlist for the award this year along with his former teammate and Real Madrid's Croatian midfielder Luka Modric, who won the UEFA Champions League with his club and helped his country reach the final of the FIFA World Cup that saw him win the FIFA Golden Ball in the tournament, and Liverpool's Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah, who won the PFA player of the season in the Premier League was instrumental for the Reds in reaching the final of the Champions League.

Last month, Cristiano missed the UEFA Best Player award, which was awarded to Modric and there were reports that the list of the award winners was leaked to the Portuguese captain in advance, which prompted him to skip the event.

This time around, Cristiano has a valid reason to miss the event as Juventus took on Frosinone late on Sunday night and also play again when they host Bologna in Serie A on Wednesday. This means that the Italian giants will play two league games in a space of four days and have just two days to recover between the two games.

Just like the UEFA awards, Modric could win The Best FIFA Player Award for his invincible performances over the last one year. The Croat is expected to be in London for the awards night in spite of his team scheduled to play Sevilla on Wednesday.