On accomplishments Sneijder should be there and he should probably win it... He had a tremendous year.
That said, he would never be European or World footballer of the year for me. That would take the value of magic and beauty outta the game....
Sneijder had some very big games, and scored some crucial goals both for Inter and Holland but a footballer is more than just what shows up on the statistics sheet in my opinion...which is probably why these things are so subjective and ultimately controversial. (i.e. it's almost impossible to measure the intangibles)
To me, Messi, Iniesta and Xavi (the shortlist) lit up the football stage more than Sneijder last season. Messi tore teams to shreds and entertained fans in a way that Sneijder could never do... He had performances last season that will go down in history as some of the best ever- football from the heavens that we should consider ourselves lucky to have seen live...
....and Xavi and Iniesta were the engine of the World Champions (Iniesta scoring the lone [winning] goal). Both for Barca and for Spain Xavi and Iniesta played a higher calibre of football in a creative midfield capacity than did Sneijder. Despite his position in the middle of the field, in my opinion Sneijder made a bigger name for himself last season by being an opportunistic goal scoring midfielder moreso than from being a consistently creative midfield maestro over the 90 mins of his games...
Like ah say, on accomplishments , statistics and pure effectiveness, Sneijder was arguably European and World footballer of the year for 2009/2010....not only did he win a treble but he was very instrumental in getting his teams to where they got. But I watched Inter closely last season- not just champions league...I also watched Barca/la liga and the World Cup...Xavi, Iniesta and Messi lit football up on a different level to Sniejder last season...they played football that draws adjectives such as breathtaking, superb, magical, genius...Sneijder was "just" very good....
I have no problem with Xavi, Iniesta and Messi being the top 3 players in Europe....dais just me though.