Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez join Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo on Ballon d'Or shortlist

As well as the usual La Liga suspects - Barcelona’s record five-time winner Lionel Messi and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo – a number of Premier League players have made the shortlist this year.

Leicester City’s much spoken of fairy-tale season last year – one which they have struggled to get close to in terms of results this season – is capped with shortlist places for both last year’s PFA player of the year, Riyad Mahrez, and England player Jamie Vardy. Vardy is joined by one other Brit, Ronaldo’s Real team-mate, Welshman Gareth Bale.

Eight of the 30 shortlisted players are Premier League players, including Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and West Ham’s Dimitri Payet who enjoyed a recall to the France national team last year, also make the cut.

La Liga has the lion’s share of the nominations, with 13 of the 30 from Barcelona, Real and Atletico Madrid including Barca’s star trio of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez. They are joined by Antoine Griezmann who won the golden boot at this summer’s Euro 2016 tournament.

The much-coveted prize, which has been completely dominated by rivals Messi and Ronaldo for the last eight years, has been running since 1956, awarded by France Football magazine.

For the last six years it has been presented in association with football’s world governing body FIFA, though the organisation ended its association with the award earlier this year.

Sergio Aguero (Manchester City)

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund)

Gareth Bale (Real Madrid)

Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus)

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)

Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City)

Paulo Dybala (Juventus)

Diego Godin (Atletico Madrid)

Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid)

Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus)

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United)

Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)

Koke (Atletico Madrid)

Toni Kroos (Real Madrid)

Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)

Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur)

Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City)

Lionel Messi (Barcelona)

Luka Modric (Real Madrid)

Thomas Muller (Bayern Munich).

Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich)

Neymar (Barcelona)

Dimitri Payet (West Ham)

Pepe (Real Madrid)

Paul Pogba (Manchester United)

Rui Patricio (Sporting Lisbon)

Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)

Luis Suarez (Barcelona)

Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)

Arturo Vidal (Bayern Munich).