Cristiano Ronaldo has joined George Best, Sir Bobby Charlton and Denis Law as Manchester United players to have won the Ballon d'Or. Ronaldo scored maximum votes from 77 of the 96 judges to score a total of 446 votes to defeat Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Liverpool's Fernando Torres for the prestigious trophy awarded by France Football magazine.

The Portuguese winger scored an amazing 42 goals last season and becomes just the second English Premier League player to win the award in the last 19 years.

Michael Owen won the award in 2001.

Ronaldo finished runner-up to AC Milan's Kaka last season and already this season has netted nine times for United.

He is just the third Portuguese player to win, following in the footsteps of Eusebio (1965) and Luis Figo (2000).

Other Premier League players to feature in the voting included Liverpool's Steven Gerrard (10th), Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor (12th), Ronaldo's Man Utd teammate Wayne Rooney (13th) and Chelsea's Frank Lampard (15th).