The Ballon d’Or: A Credible Recognition Of Excellence Or Evident Favouritism?
Inconsistencies continue to be involved in France Football’s Ballon d’or awards. There are several question marks surrounding the voting process while it remains difficult to establish fairness in the entire selection process. This year’s award is yet another example of a shambolic and somewhat deliberate attempt to disregard an obvious choice in favour of one of their own…
Written By Jacobs Dunga
Despite winning the award on three occasions, Johann Cryuff shared his thoughts on the Ballon d’or in 2014: “Personally, I’m not in the least bit interested. It’s a media circus. Everybody votes for their own man. Things should make sense in making one decision or another. It isn’t like that now. Therefore, we have to accept it for what it is, and then just do whatever we want”. He told Spanish outlet Marca.
Cryuff’s Sentiments In Context…
The legend’s words can be categorized into different sub parts depending on what angle the writer is evaluating. The late former Ajax and Barcelona playmaker can be understood to be speaking as a Messi fanatic who was expectedly disappointed at seeing a rival pick up the controversial award for the second year running. He said after Ronaldo emerged the winner again in 2014: “At the highest level, it’s all about the combination of individual quality and achievements. From that point of view, it’s absurd that for the second year in a row a player has been given the award who did not both play excellent and win the most trophies.”
“Back in 2013, Bayern Munich won every single trophy out there, yet Cristiano Ronaldo still won the award instead of a player like Toni Kroos or someone else from Bayern.”
“In 2014, Kroos was a key player again for the team that won the World Cup, yet he was not even among the final three nominees. Ronaldo was completely anonymous at the World Cup… Let this be clear, I cannot take this FIFA award seriously anymore.” He said in his column for Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf in 2014.
Majority of fans and pundits did disagree with the late football icon as they believed Ronaldo’s outstanding performances for Real Madrid where he propelled the Galacticos to Champions League glory stood out than every other individual performance. We can yet argue that it wouldn’t have been undeserving if either of Franck Ribery or Toni Kroos had been recognized for the different roles they played in the success of their teams.
“For me, Messi is one of the five best footballers of all time, but they must start to take note of who is the best player in a given season.”
— Iker Casillas
The Sneijder/Iniesta Snub
Little did Cruyff remember that just some four years earlier, Lionel Messi had been awarded one of the most controversial awards ever in the history of the round leather game. The former Barcelona forward was awarded a contentious Golden Ball in 2010, the first year after FIFA and France Football agreed to merge and came up with the FIFA Ballon d’Or.
It was the first time that national team coaches and captains were allowed to vote alongside selected journalists and it was Wesley Sneijder who helped Inter Milan to the treble that year, eliminating Lionel Messi’s Barcelona in the semi final of the Champions League in a game where he scored the equalizer and provided the assist for the winning goal.
He was also instrumental as Holland lost to Spain in the finals of the World Cup. That year, Sneijder finished as the top assist provider in the UCL and was named the best midfielder in the same tournament. His exploits for the Dutch national team saw him finish as the bronze boot winner level on goals with Thomas Muller and David Villa who won gold and silver respectively. The former Inter Milan number ten was the journalists favourite as he toppled their polls with 293 points ahead of the Barcelona trio of Iniesta, Xavi and eventual winner Messi.
Iniesta scored the winning goal for Spain against Netherlands in that year’s World Cup and won La Liga with Barcelona but was not deemed worthy of the prize. Iniesta would come second behind Messi and ahead of Xavi in third with Sneijder missing out completely on a podium finish. So apparent was the injustice in 2010 that in 2018, in that year’s edition of the France Football magazine, the editor Pascal Ferre penned an editorial opinion piece titled “Forgive Us Andrés” which was an open letter to the former Spain international for having been neglected by the organizers of the much censured award.
“Iniesta has proven that the brain is definitely the most important thing when it comes to champions,” Ferre wrote.
The Florentino Perez Conspiracy
Fast forward to 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo spearheaded Real Madrid’s surge to their third successive Champions league triumph where he became the first player in the competition’s history to score in all group games and also the first person ever to win the title on five different occasions while finishing the tournament as the top scorer with 15 goals in 13 games. Ronaldo to football pundits and followers was the clear favourite but again it was not to be as the five time winner had departed Real Madrid for Juventus during that summer and with no standout player in that French team that lifted the World Cup and having already defied the norms to award the 2010 and 2014 editions to Messi and Ronaldo respectively rather than a member of the World Cup winning teams of those years, Luka Modric having marshalled Croatia to a second place finish in the 2018 World Cup and being a member of the Ronaldo inspired Real Madrid team that won the Champions League was undeservedly awarded the Ballon d’Or in 2018. It was believed that Ronaldo’s exit from Real Madrid in an acrimonious dispute led to the award being gifted to the Croatian.
France Football Fiasco
It is 2021 and the organizers never seem to disappoint the public on how ludicrous and unimaginable the awards process is with its credibility being put to questioning yet again.
Robert Lewandowski won the treble with Bayern in the 2019/2020 season and took almost every individual award that year including the FIFA Best Men’s Player Award and the UEFA player of the year. The Polish striker continued his form into the 2020/2021 season by finishing the Bundesliga season with a record 41 goals thus winning the European Golden Shoe and Germany’s player of the year award.
He also helped Bayern retain the Bundesliga title and has been the leading goal scorer in the world in 2021. After seeing the award cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic outbreak, it was widely presumed that Lewandowski was prized for his first Ballon d’Or by the time the award ceremony comes up. Lightning would however strike again as Lionel Messi, against all odds and defying the general perception of the football world was awarded his seventh Golden Ball at the ceremony in Paris.
The most mystifying of it all was that a new award was created as compensation for Lewandowski for being overlooked for an award he had actually envisaged winning.
The Bayern Munich striker had said just before the ceremony about his chances of winning: “I think I can win the Ballon d’Or if no politics are involved.” Many predict that the statement from the 33-year-old will go down in history as he only saw politics as his only contender and not any player.
Messi’s Confession
Lionel Messi himself confessed after being presented with the award: “Robert, you deserve your Ballon D’Or. Last year, everyone was in agreement to say that you were the big winner of this award.” This statement from the Argentine tells how much he knew in himself that he was standing in someone else’s stead on the winning podium.
Previous victim of the award’s injustice, Toni Kroos said on his podcast after the choice of Messi as the winner: “First of all, I must say that I am not interested in individual awards at all. However, if there are [such awards], they should be fair. In my opinion, this is not the case at all.” “There is no doubt that Messi stands next to Cristiano Ronaldo as the best player of this decade and has qualities that others will never have,. The biggest mistake in the award was [regarding] first place.” He added.
“I find it more and more difficult to believe in these football awards,” Casillas wrote on Twitter. “For me, Messi is one of the five best footballers of all time, but they must start to take note of who is the best player in a given season.
“It’s not that difficult. Others just make it difficult,” he concluded.
Former Germany captain, Oliver Khan weighed in on the debate. “In addition to being named striker of the year, @lewy_official [Robert Lewandowski] would have deserved #BallonDor as well, because he has been doing absolutely outstanding every day for years. Congratulations to Lionel Messi.”
Lionel Messi may have won his seventh crown but the debate as to how deluded and corruptible the whole process is will continually linger on in the hearts of millions of football lovers globally who live everyday to witness a sincere and unbiased award ceremony.
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