FC Barcelona player´s Ronaldinho Gaucho and Lionel Messi have been nominated for the Laureus Awards, held in Barcelona for the first time on May 22. The Laureus Award is considered as sport's equivalent to the Film-Oscars. The seventh edition of the Laureus World Sports Awards will take place in the Parc del Fòrum in Barcelona. A list of nominated teams and athlets have been announced on Thursday. The presentation was held in Barcelona City Hall and was attended by Barcelona´s mayor Joan Clos and the president of Laureus, ex hurdler Edwin Moses.


The Laureus Award has six categories and Barcelona are represented in three of them:
Ronaldinho is one of the nominees for best sportsman of the year, along with Formula One driver Fernando Alonso, cyclist Lance Armstrong, tennis player Roger Federer, motorcyclist GP Valentino Rossi and golfer Tiger Woods.

Leo Messi has been nominated as one of sport's rising stars along with tennis player Rafa Nadal, golfer Paula Creamer, tennis player Andrew Murray, driver Danica Patrick and American footballer Ben Roethlisberger.
FC Barcelona as a club has been nominated as team of the year along with Liverpool (Champions League winners), Croatia (Davis Cup winners), New Zealand's rugby team, Renault (formula one constructers champions) and San Antonio Spurs (NBA winners).


Last year´s Laureus gala was held in Estoril, Portugal. Winner of last year´s "Best Sports People" Award were Swiss tennis player Roger Federer and English runner Kathy Holmes.

The Laureus World Sports awards are decided by a committee of 40 of the greatest sports stars in history, including Michael Jordan, Boris Becker, Sergey Bubka, Bobby Charlton, Sebastian Coe, 'Pele', Nadia Comaneci, Emerson Fittipaldi, Michael Johnson, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Severiano Ballesteros, Miguel Indurain, Gary Player and Mark Spitz.