Tuesday 20 October 2015 9:54 am

Ballon d’Or 2015 date and nominees shortlist: Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City only Premier League clubs represented on list

By: Joe Hall

Barcelona have more players on the shortlist for the next Ballon d'Or award than the entire Premier League. 

In fact, the Premier League has five players represented on the shortlist – the same number as Bayern Munich.

Last season's runners-up Manchester City have Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne named on the list, while Chelsea's Eden Hazard and Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez also appear.

Premier League-winning manager Jose Mourinho and his rival Arsene Wenger are the Premier League's two representatives on the list of 10 best managers of the year.

Read more: 40pc of all Ballon d'Or nominations went to Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid players

Real Madrid winger Cristiano Ronaldo won last year's award for a second successive year.The Ballon d’Or was originally created by France Football magazine in 1956, before being merged with the Fifa World Player of the Year award in 2010 to form the Fifa Ballon d’Or, as it is now known. 

Before the ultimate winner is revealed on 11 January, the list is whittled down to just three nominees – over 40 per cent of whom have played for Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, the three most represented clubs on this year's shortlist.

Since 2010, only those three clubs have been represented in the final three nominated players. In that time, one of those sides has always been in the Champions League final.

Furthermore, in the last 10 years only nine clubs have had players in the final three – half the number of clubs represented in the award's first decade.