It was the night of the 28th day of October and Paris was absolutely buzzing. After all, one footballing superstar after another landed in the city for an award ceremony. It wasn’t just some award ceremony but the biggest and the most prestigious award ceremony in the world of football. It was the night of the Balon D’Or prize distribution.
The Balon D’Or has been for most of its existence a celebration of footballing greatness. However, the legacy of this prestigious award has taken a downward slide in the past few years. This downward slide has been predominantly due to the controversies surrounding the decision to award the trophy to certain players who the fans called ‘undeserving’. Leading us to the fateful night of the 28th of October when the Balon D’Or jury seemingly lost all of its credibility after it awarded the trophy to the Spanish defensive midfielder Rodrigo Hernandez instead of the Brazilian winger Vinicius Jr.
While the trophy was awarded on the night of the 28th, the decision must have been relayed on to the players and the teams much before the ceremony. This decision infuriated Real Madrid, ‘The Best Club of the Year’ so much that they decided to entirely skip the ceremony in support of Vinicius Jr in spite of the club and its manager winning big at the awards ceremony. As per reports and rumours scoured from across the internet, the Spanish club felt cheated and that the player had been discriminated against. Reports on the contrary also suggest that Real Madrid’s act of boycotting the ceremony actually had nothing to do with Rodri winning instead of Vinicius Jr but rather as a sign of protest against UEFA amidst the already soured relations the club and its president, Florentino Perez has with the European organisation.
The decision of giving the Balon D’Or to Rodri has also caused a hue-and cry amongst fans. While Manchester city fans and toxic Real Madrid haters were quick to troll ‘Los Blancos’ and their supporters, a brand new debate has quickly fuelled online.
‘Is Rodri’s Balon D’Or deserved or not?’
To answer this question would be rather subjective, after all his fans would say yes and the Real Madrid fans would say no. Instead I propose we debate ‘whether the process of deciding a Balon D’Or winner is fair or not?’
Before we venture into this question, here is an excerpt from UEFA’s official website on the process of deciding the Balon D’Or winner,
“The Ballon d’Or is awarded by an international jury of specialised journalists, with one representative per country, from the top 100 in the latest FIFA rankings (before the lists are published) for men and the top 50 for women.
Each juror selects ten players in descending order of merit from a list of 30 established by the editorial staff of France Football, members of the editorial staff of L’Équipe, the best juror from the previous edition, and UEFA ambassadors Luís Figo for the men’s trophy and Nadine Kessler for the women’s trophy.
The ten selected players are awarded 15, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 point respectively. The Ballon d’Or is awarded to the player with the highest number of points.”
Going back to the question, ‘whether the process of deciding a Balon D’Or winner is fair or not?’ To answer it, I say NO. My reasons for the same will be detailed and well documented to stay away from my personal biases.
My first clear issue with how they decide the winner is criteria the jury uses. While the Uefa states 3 clear criteria, I honestly wonder how much have they been used. The criteria stated by Uefa are in itself vague and arbitrary. What might be a good performance and good character to one, will not to another. It is also not clear how to judge players who play at different positions on the group. After all, how do you judge a winger and a defensive midfielder. Do you judge them based on their statistics for club and country? If yes, how much importance do you give to the club or country? Or do you judge them on basis of trophies won by their club from critical contributions from the player?
To understand the situation let us take an example from the 2023 Balon D’Or where the Argentine legend Lionel Messi was awarded his 8th Balon D’Or over Erling Haaland. In the season of 2022/23, Lionel Messi had for club and country played 54 matches and scored 33 goals whereas Erling Haaland over the same period played 61 matches and scored 60 goals. Keeping in mind that Messi did play an extra tournament, i.e. FIFA WC 2022 which Erling Haaland did not play.
Haaland over this period won for his team the FA Cup, EPL and the Champions League with his heavy contributions which also got him several golden boot and player of the year trophies. Messi in this same period won the world cup, Ligue 1 and the French Super Cup.
Taking all these details into consideration, how do you decide who wins the Balon D’Or? Do you decide on stats? Or on the trophies won by club and country? In this case, Messi was chosen to be the winner despite being left way behind by Haaland in terms of goals (excluding world cup) solely because he won the World Cup in 2022, even though Haaland had heavily contributed in winning the historic treble for Manchester City.
Since there is no clear weightage to any domestic or international trophy, it is hard and rather very subjective to adjudge the winner among these two. This was also the reason why so many fans said that Haaland was ‘robbed’ of the BDR simply because Messi has a reputation and finally won the World Cup even though at a club level he had a sub-par year with figures incomparable to Haaland.
Similarly in the year 2021, Messi was awarded the Balon D’Or over Lewandowski even though Lewandowski had a much more impactful season, winning more trophies than Messi and even scoring 23 more goals than Lionel Messi. This in addition to how Uefa and France Football chose to award the Balon D’Or to Rodri despite him having an inferior season compared to Vinicius Jr, while leaving top contenders such as Lautaro Martinez and Rodrygo, who wasn’t even selected in the top 30 has led me to an observation.
My Observation
All the above-mentioned incidents and the process of voting for the BDR have helped me reach the observation that when it comes to voting by journalists, it tends to be which player is more votable rather than which player performed better clinically. In brief, Balon D’Or as it is turns out awards PR rather than talent.
Let us come back to this year’s Balon D’Or, which very evidently shows that publicity, PR and overall global public image is what decided this year’s BDR over talent, consistency and performance.
As we know both Rodri and Vinicius Jr had phenomenal seasons individually and contributed heavily to their club’s success and in the case of Rodri, the country as well. The debate arises when we take a look at the reasons given for Rodri’s BDR victory. Fans and pundits claim that Rodri was simply the best player in the English Premier League and Man City. Not only domestically but Rodri was also the POTT in the Euros 2024 in addition to winning the Euros, the EPL, the Club World Cup and then the UEFA Supercup (which isn’t included in the season).
On the other hand Vinicius Jr orchestrated one of the best seasons for Real Madrid who won the La Liga, UCL and the Supercopa that too in the absence of a specialised striker, a void left after the surprise exit of Karim Benzema at the end of the 2022/23 season. While he wasn’t as successful during his time with Brazil, a side which was one of the worst to ever play.
The stats and the trophies make it seem that the competition between the two was pretty close. However, as impressive as Rodri was for Manchester City, he wasn’t their best player or in the league as well. If we also take a look at the average match ratings during the Euros, Rodri was far from being the ‘best’, contrary to what the pundits claim.
Pundits also claim that Rodri won the BDR solely because he had an international trophy which Vini did not have, citing the poor precedent of Lionel Messi who was awarded the BDR simply because he won the World Cup. If international trophies is truly what counts as a decisive factor in close calls, it would have made more sense to award the BDR to Dani Carvajal who not only won everything Vini won but also won the Euros alongside Rodri. However, if international trophies is not what decides the winner of the BDR, then what is?
The answer is quite clear. It’s the player’s global public image and his reputation and the relationship with the media. Otherwise why would the jury not have awarded the BDR to Carvajal or even include Rodrygo to the top 30 rankings even though players who had much mediocre performances but better PR were.
When we talk about why Vini lost, the only argument that the pundits offer is that he has a ‘bad attitude’ and does not have sportsmanship. If we hold this as the deciding factor then we might have to snatch away a few BDRs from Messi as well as Ronaldo. Not to forget, Emi Martinez’s Yashin trophy as well. After all, he did make lewd actions after winning the World Cup and the Yashin trophy last year. Messi during the 2022 WC too had moments where he did not show sportsmanship. Sure, Vini Jr had his moments where he showed ‘bad attitude’ and did not show ‘good character’, which included teasing oppositions or sledging them or to cite Vini’s critics, provoke them. But my question is, isn’t that too common in sports? Can you really have competitive sports without sledging or teasing opponents or without any sort of desire or rivalry on the pitch?
Pundits and journalists, especially white European ones call Vinicius Jr a crybaby because unlike others Vini did not let people and players get away with racism at games. It is because of Vinicius that several instances of racial abuse and use of slurs were brought forward during La Liga matches at multiple venues, forcing La Liga and local authorities to take action, while Real Madrid stood strongly by their player in isolation. The act of calling a player a crybaby, that too to a player who called out racism speaks a lot of the ego and the nature of a few people who at the end of the day are influential.
Compare the behaviour of the pundits and journalists towards Rodri, a white European player who had the unending support of the media and the pundits to that towards Vinicius Jr, a black non-European player who challenged the system and the way things used to happen within the La Liga.
While most of the media and journalists practically had wet dreams about Rodri, they were insensitive, harsh and racist towards Vini and had an entire smear campaign against him. All because he is non-European and black and talked against racism by the Spanish fans and celebrated his goals the way he wanted: By dancing. One of the most shocking moments which really did expose UEFA’s racism towards Vini was when he was openly trolled by the official BDR page during their stream by posting insulting pictures of Vinicius Jr, indirectly also calling him a crybaby. France Football also did not spare their own French captain, Kylian Mbappe, who was also insulted during the said stream. Such behaviour by France Football and UEFA, which heads European football is truly deplorable and clearly shows their bias against the Brazilian. Also add in soured relations between Real Madrid and the bosses at La Liga and UEFA, it shows a clear picture of how there is open discrimination against black players if they are from Real Madrid.
Similarly, another reason I use for my observation is Lautaro Martinez. He had a great season for club as well as country winning multiple domestic trophies and even winning the Copa America. In spite garnering more g/a than even Vini and giving in better performances than Rodri, he was sidelines and not even considered as a serious contender for the BDR. The only reason he lost the BDR is because no one talked about him. Not one person in the media. This shows you if you ain’t in the media, you ain’t winning the BDR.
By the end of this article, it should have been clear that the Balon D’Or is no longer the prestigious award it once was, which was given to the best footballer for his talent and performance throughout a year or season but rather is an award which is given to a footballer which has a better image and PR. A player that the journalists like. A player who does not challenge the system. Essentially turning the Balon D’Or into a PR competition instead of a pure footballing contest, where players are gifted the award by a biased jury of biased journalists selected by a biased organisation. At the end, I would just like to add that if things do not change, we might as well never see Vinicius Jr ever lift the BDR because I don’t think the smear campaigns will now end. Instead Vinicius’ loss has only amplified their hateful campaign, calling his loss ‘vindication’.