Vinícius Júnior and Aitana Bonmati win FIFA best player of the year awards

Real Madrid's Vinícius Júnior wins FIFA's men's player of the year, while Barcelona's Aitana Bonmati takes women's prize.

Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior finally got his hands on a big global player award on Tuesday.

Vinícius was named the men’s player of the year at the FIFA’s “The Best” awards, where Barcelona playmaker Aitana Bonmati continued to clean up in the prizes for women’s soccer.

The 24-year-old Vinícius was so disappointed to lose out to Manchester City midfielder Rodri for the Ballon d’Or in October that he and his Madrid team snubbed the ceremony in Paris in protest.

This time Rodri ended up second to Vinícius by five points. The Brazil forward was at the FIFA ceremony to collect his award having travelled to Doha on Monday with Madrid for the Intercontinental Cup final against Pachuca.

“I don’t even know where to begin," Vinícius said in Portuguese. "It was so far away that it seemed impossible to get here. I was a kid who only played football barefoot on the streets of São Gonçalo, close to poverty and crime.

"Getting here is something very important to me. I’m doing it for many children who think that everything is impossible and who think they can’t get here.”

Vinícius echoed those sentiments in an Instagram post, where he took a thinly-disguised dig at presumably the Ballon d’Or voters — journalists from the top 100 countries in the FIFA rankings.