Lionel Messi was praised for his decision to attend FIFA’s The Best awards in London - only to then pull out at the last minute.

Mundo Deportivo reported the Barcelona star would no longer be travelling to England due to family reasons. No further details have emerged.

Messi, however, could be forgiven if he didn’t really want to go in the first place. Despite being widely regarded as the most talented footballer on the planet, the Argentine superstar failed to make FIFA’s three-man shortlist for this year’s coveted ‘The Best’ award.

Instead, the accolade was contested between Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohamed Salah and Luka Modric.

It was Modric who took the award home - and deservedly so, most football fans agree - after winning the Champions League (again) with Real Madrid while also inspiring Croatia to the World Cup final.

Modric received 29 per cent of the votes, beating Ronaldo (19 per cent) and Salah (11.2 per cent) in second and third place, respectively.

Kylian Mbappe was fourth with 10 per cent, while Messi was fifth with nine per cent.

As soon as the winner was announced, details of how international captains and coaches voted emerged.

Messi's voting since 2011 shows a surprise change

One of the biggest talking points was how Messi voted. The five-time Ballon d’Or winner, for the first time ever, named Ronaldo in his top three.

He put Ronaldo in third place, Mbappe second, and Modric first.

Curiously, this is the first time since Messi has been able to vote as captain of Argentina, from 2011, that he has failed to vote for a Barcelona teammate or a compatriot.

Here are his votes in full since 2011, per Marca:

2011: Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta, [Sergio] Aguero

2012: Iniesta, Xavi, Aguero

2013: Iniesta, Xavi, Neymar

2014: [Angel] Di Maria, Iniesta, [Javier] Mascherano

2015: [Luis] Suarez, Neymar, Iniesta

2016: Suarez, Neymar, Iniesta

2017: Suarez, Iniesta, Neymar

2018: [Luka] Modric, [Kylian] Mbappe, [Cristiano] Ronaldo

As you can see, there’s been a sudden and surprising change from Messi this year for some reason.

His voting patterns between 2011-2017 were, like most of his peers, clearly biased towards players he considers friends.

But he has never played alongside Modric, Mbappe or Ronaldo - and must have known that Ronaldo would not be returning the favour.

If anything, this is the final proof that individual awards mean very little to Messi these days - perhaps less so than ever before, in fact.

Now, if only other top players could change their mindset and vote with similar honesty.