The 33-year-old goalscoring machine has informed FIFA that he will not be attending the event in London.

Today is Monday, meaning The Best FIFA Awards gala is only hours away. However, one key man will reportedly be absent from today's ceremony.

According to Marca, that man is Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese ace is tipped to miss out on the event being held in London despite being up for the biggest prize.

The 33-year-old is one of three players nominated for The Best Men's Player prize, with Luka Modric and Mohamed Salah being the other contenders. The Portuguese icon won this twice in the last two years and could make it three out of three, but he will not be present nonetheless.

This has raised speculation that the five-time Ballon d'Or winner will miss out on this prize despite guiding Real Madrid to a third straight Champions League title last season. The attacker, who currently plays for Juventus, infamously snubbed the recent UEFA Awards after finding out that he had not been chosen as the winner.

However as stated in the report by Marca, Ronaldo's absence is due to footballing reasons. None of Juventus' players will attend Monday's event as they played Frosinone the night before and will be back in action in Serie A on Wednesday. Regardless, this only strengthens the belief that Modric will beat him to the award.

His former Blancos team-mate won the World Cup Golden Ball after leading his nation to the final, subsequently following up on that feat with his UEFA Player of the Year win. Since then, many have tipped the midfielder to go on and win The Best and Ballon d'Or prizes.

Sergio Ramos and Florentino Perez are two of many other Real Madrid men who will make the trip to the English capital and will be on hand to celebrate yet another victory for the Spanish club should the Croatian win. Whether this is the case or not will be revealed once the ceremony begins.