Messi and Ronaldo should have shared Ballon d´Or – Keegan

Kevin Keegan believes Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo should have been declared joint winners of the FIFA Ballon d’Or for the past four years.

Only Andres Iniesta has muscled in on the Barcelona and Real Madrid stars’ dominance of the top two since 2008, finishing second behind team-mate Messi in 2010.

In total, Messi and Ronaldo have held the prestigious title between them for the past seven years, and former Liverpool and Hamburg man Keegan – a two-time winner of the award in its former guise  – says there should be no need to choose between the pair.

“Everyone wants you to say: ‘who do you think is best?’,” he told www.sc.qa. “But I always say: ‘Just think how lucky we are to have two players like this’.

“It doesn’t happen very often and really they should have shared it for the last four years. You could say ‘joint winners Ronaldo and Messi’, because the two of them have been on a different level to everyone.”

Messi and Ronaldo are up against Neymar for the 2015 crown, which will be awarded in Zurich on Monday.

“I would like to see someone else win it, but I think Messi – it’s his turn,” added Keegan. “[He and Ronaldo] keep swapping it, ‘you have it one year and I’ll have it the next’.”