Kaka Officially Wins Ballon d’Or

Kaka of AC Milan has won the 2007 Ballon d'Or after picking up 444 points in the final stage of voting.

The Brazilian attacking midfielder has been rumoured for weeks to be a shoe-in for the prestigious World Player of the Year award, but only now is it official that he has done so.

The 25 year old racked up over 150 voting points more than his closest competitor, Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo, while Lionel Messi finished not too far behind in third place.

For this edition of the award, 96 journalists voted for their five top players in order of decreasing preference, with five points for their first pick, four for their second choice, and so on to one point.

Only 53 of the journalists were European, giving the France Football award a distinctly international flavour.

European clubs dominated the voting, but Kaka himself is the third Brazilian to win in the past six years, and AC Milan's first winner since Andriy Shevchenko won the award in 2004.

Last year's winner Fabio Cannavaro finished joint 20th with 5 points.

The results in full:

KAKA (AC Milan, Brazil) - 444 points
Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, England) - 277 points
Lionel Messi (Barcelona, Argentina) - 255 points
Didier Drogba (Chelsea, Côte d'Ivoire) - 108 points
Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan, Italy) - 41 points
Ruud van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid, Netherlands) - 39 points
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Internazionale, Sweden) - 31 points
Francesc 'Cesc' Fabregas (Arsenal, Spain) - 27 points
Robinho (Real Madrid, Brazil) - 24 points
Francesco Totti (AS Roma, Italy) - 21 points
Frederic Kanoute (Sevilla, Mali) - 19 points
Ronaldinho (Barcelona, Brazil) - 18 points
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool, England) - 17 points
Juan Roman Riquelme (Villarreal/Boca Juniors, Argentina) - 15 points
Daniel Alves (Sevilla, Brazil) - 14 points
Filippo Inzaghi (AC Milan, Italy) - 12 points
Franck Ribery (Marseille/Bayern Munich, France) - 10 points
Paolo Maldini (AC Milan, Italy) - 8 points
Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus, Italy) Petr Cech (Chelsea, Czech Republic), Gennaro Gattuso (AC Milan, Italy), Thierry Henry (Arsenal/Barcelona, France) and Clarence Seedorf (AC Milan, Netherlands) - 7 points

Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid, Italy) and Michael Essien (Chelsea, Ghana) - 5 points

Wayne Rooney (Manchester United, England) - 4 points

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid, Spain) and Rogerio Ceni (Sao Paulo, Brazil) - 3 points

Younis Mahmoud (Al-Gharafa, Iraq) - 2 points

Dimitar Berbatov (Tottenham Hotspur, Bulgaria), Samuel Eto'o (Barcelona, Cameroon), Ryan Giggs (Manchester United, Wales), Guillermo Ochoa (Club America, Mexico), Carlos Tevez (West Ham United/Manchester United, Argentina) and Robin van Persie (Arsenal, Netherlands) - 1 point

Eric Abidal (Lyon/Barcelona, France), David Beckham (Real Madrid/Los Angeles Galaxy, England), Deco (Barcelona, Portugal), Mahamadou Diarra (Real Madrid, Mali), Diego (Werder Bremen, Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen/Bayern Munich, Germany), Florent Malouda (Lyon/Chelsea, France), Shunsuke Nakamura (Celtic, Japan), Ricardo Quaresma (Porto, Portugal), Raul (Real Madrid, Spain), Paul Scholes (Manchester United, England), Luca Toni (Fiorentina/Bayern Munich, Italy), Kolo Toure (Arsenal, Côte d'Ivoire), José Fernando Torres (Atletico Madrid/Liverpool, Spain) David Villa (Valencia, Spain) - 0 points.