Gareth Bale among first nominees as 30-man shortlist for Ballon D’Or 2016 is revealed

By five o'clock, we should have the full 30-man shortlist for the prestigious Ballon D'Or prize for 2016.

There is a slight change in the format for this year's Ballon d'Or as it is solely judged by a panel of journalists after Fifa and France Football magazine decided to split. They had originally teamed up to merge the previous Fifa World Player of the Year prize with the French publication's prize for the best player in Europe in 2010. France Football magazine is revealing the 30-man shortlist in bunches of five players every two hours throughout the day. There were no real surprises in the first couple of batches of nominees with two-time winner Cristiano Ronaldo making the cut alongside his teammate Gareth Bale, Atletico Madrid's Antoine Griezmann and Diego Godin, Man City duo Sergio Aguero and Kevin De Bruyne as well as Borussia Dortmund sharpshooter Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. We'll keep you up to date with the list of nominees once they're announced. Batch one: Sergio Aguero Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Gareth Bale Gianluigi Buffon Cristiano Ronaldo Batch two: Kevin De Bruyne Paulo Dybala Diego Godín Antoine Griezmann Gonzalo Higuain Batch three: Zlatan Ibrahimovic Andres Iniesta Koke Toni Kroos Robert Lewandowski Batch four: Hugo Lloris Riyad Mahrez Lionel Messi Luka Modric Thomas Muller Batch five Batch six You can catch up on the latest episode of JOE's Football Friday Live right here...