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CHICAGO (Oct. 13, 2006) - FIFA has announced a short list of candidates for the 2006 Men’s and Women’s World Players of the Year and the USA’s Kristine Lilly and Abby Wambach are among the 20 women up for the award.

The winners will be announced at the 16th FIFA World Player Gala at the Zurich Opera House on December 18.
The Committee for Women’s Football and the FIFA Women’s World Cup, in conjunction with women’s football experts from other FIFA committees have nominated 20 players from the women’s game. The 30 players from the men’s game were chosen by the Football Committee and the Technical and Development Committee.

As in the previous two years, the head coaches and captains of men’s and women’s national teams will now vote for the best players from the men’s and women’s games from the lists of candidates. At the beginning of December, FIFA will reveal the names of the three male and three female finalists who have received the most votes.

There will be a new Women’s World Player of the Year in 2006 as the winner of the last three awards, German striker Birgit Prinz, is not among the 20 women nominated.

The following twenty women (in alphabetical order) are in contention for the title of FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2006:

Laura Georges (France), Duan Han (China PR), Laura Kalmari (Finland), Kristine Lilly (USA), Renate Lingor (Germany), Xiaoxu Ma (China PR), Marta (Brazil), Malin Moström (Sweden), Monica Ocampo (Mexico), Cathrine Paaske Sörensen (Denmark), Kum Suk Ri (Korea DPR), Silke Rottenberg (Germany), Cheryl Salisbury (Australia), Lotta Schelin (Sweden), Christine Sinclair (Canada), Kelly Smith (England), Sandrine Soubeyrand (France), Ingvild Stensland (Norway), Cynthia Uwak (Nigeria), Abby Wambach (USA).

The following thirty men (in alphabetical order) are in contention for the title of FIFA World Player of the Year 2006:

Adriano (Brazil), Michael Ballack (Germany), Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Petr Cech (Czech Republic), Deco (Portugal), Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire), Michael Essien (Ghana), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Luis Figo (Portugal), Gennaro Gattuso (Italy), Steven Gerrard (England), Thierry Henry (France), Kaká (Brazil), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Frank Lampard (England), Jens Lehmann (Germany), Alessandro Nesta (Italy), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Franck Ribéry (France), Juan Román Riquelme (Argentina), Ronaldinho (Brazil), Wayne Rooney (England), Tomas Rosicky (Czech Republic), Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine), Lilian Thuram (France), Patrick Viera (France), Zinedine Zidane (France).