The 1997 FIFA World Player of the Year award was won by Ronaldo becoming the first player to win the award two years in a row.
| Player | 5 points | 3 points | 1 point | Total | |
| 1 | Ronaldo | 86 | 16 | 2 | 480 |
| 2 | Roberto Carlos | 5 | 11 | 7 | 65 |
| 3 | Dennis Bergkamp | 7 | 7 | 6 | 62 |
| = | Zinedine Zidane | 2 | 16 | 4 | 62 |
| 5 | Raúl González | 2 | 9 | 14 | 51 |
| 6 | Alessandro Del Piero | 2 | 4 | 5 | 27 |
| 7 | Davor SUker | 1 | 4 | 3 | 20 |
| 8 | Gabriel Batistuta | 1 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| = | Alan Shearer | 0 | 5 | 1 | 16 |
| 10 | Leonardo | 2 | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| = | Peter Schmeichel | 1 | 2 | 3 | 14 |
| 12 | Youri Djorkaeff | 0 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| = | Marcelo Salas | 1 | 2 | 1 | 12 |
| 14 | Andreas Möller | 0 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
| = | Matthias Sammer | 1 | 1 | 3 | 11 |
| = | George Weah | 0 | 2 | 5 | 11 |
| = | Gianfranco Zola | 1 | 1 | 3 | 11 |
| 18 | Predrag Mijatovic | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| 19 | Faustino Asprilla | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| 20 | Luis Figo | 0 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
