The Ballon d’Or ceremony crowns the ‘best player’ in world football but the award hasn’t been given out without controversy.
On Monday, October 28, the world’s top football players will come together for France Football’s annual awards ceremony, which has been held since 1956.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have not been nominated for the Ballon d’Or for the first time since 2003, ushering in a new era.
With 24 goals and 11 assists across all competitions, Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr. is the clear favourite to win the championship as the team easily won La Liga and the 15th Champions League triumph.
He is up against Manchester City player Rodri, who helped Spain win EURO 2024 and won a record-breaking fourth consecutive Premier League title with his team, and colleague Jude Bellingham.
Players will only find out if they won the moment the envelope is opened, as there has been a significant change to this year’s award. The winner will no longer be interviewed prior to the ceremonies.
Ten players are chosen based on merit, and a panel of journalists from each of the top 100 nations in the FIFA men’s global rankings votes for the awards.
Players receive points based on where they are on the list; the winner is the one with the highest number of points.
What happened during the 2018 Ballon d’Or votes?
A major scandal rocked the 2018 ceremony where Real Madrid talisman Luka Modric was declared the winner.
The public learned that a “fake journalist” could vote even though neither the journalist nor the publication he was purportedly employed by existed.
The Comoros native Abdou Bonia was listed as employed at “albaladcomores.com.”
It was discovered that no one by the name of Abdou Bonia had ever worked at the location, and it had been dormant for six years.
Toimimou Abdo, who worked as a photographer for the newspaper when it still existed, told alwatan.net: “I’m surprised to see that the Albakad Comores exists. As far as is white, the newspaper has been closed for six years.”
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The phony journalist chose Kylian Mbappe, the star of Paris Saint-Germain at the time, as his top option. Modric came in second, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo in third, Eden Hazard in fourth, and Mohamed Salah of Liverpool in fifth.
In the end, Modric won by an overwhelming 277 points, so the phoney votes had no effect.
