By Jamie Spencer The Ballon d’Or has been a staple of the football calendar since 1956 as a way of recognising the player believed to have achieved the most over the course of a year. Conceived by sports writers Gabriel Hanot and Jacques Ferran, a jury of journalists would decide on the winner. These days, each member of the jury makes their top five selections based on three main criteria and a points-based system determines the winner. The three criteria are performances, both as an individual and part of a team, a player’s class based on talent and fair play, as well as overall judgement of…