While football is a team sport, there are moments of individual brilliance, and the Ballon d’Or, one of athletics’ oldest and most prestigious awards, exists to recognize that brilliance.
As explored in our previous article, The History of Ballon d’Or: Best Players in the Past 25 Years, France Football hands out the award after a rigorous selection process following the publication of a 30-man nominee list.
However, a select group of football journalists votes to narrow the list down to the final three contenders.
On August 12, the list of this year’s 30 finalists was made public.
Messi, the current Ballon d’Or winner and the player with the most Ballon d’Or victories since the award’s inception in 1956, and his teammate Neymar were noticeably absent.
Many people might be shocked to learn that the 35-year-old Argentine striker, who has one of the most successful careers in terms of the Golden Ball, was overlooked for the Ballon d’Or award for the first time in more than 17 years, despite a winning streak that started a year before the Ballon d’Or’s merger with FIFA.
Messi recorded three consecutive victories, for a total of four back-to-back annual wins and a grand total of seven awards!
On the list, though, is his fierce rival, Cristiano Ronaldo, who currently holds the record for the most nominations (18).
Interestingly, Frenchman Karim Benzema seems to be the fan favourite this year. A feeling that could materialize on the 17th of this month in the presentation of the Ballon d’Or award, since the 34-year-old player has just been crowned Pichichi.
He became the second top scorer in Real Madrid’s history by closely following Cristiano’s footwork and taking home the LaLiga and UEFA Champions League trophies.
Perhaps this is indicative that the rules were changed to reflect the current standard following widespread criticism of the Ballon d’Or award following Lewandowski’s defeat at the prospect of receiving the coveted World Player of the Year title.
According to L’Équipe, the Ballon d’Or 2022 nominees include the following:
- Trent Alexander-Arnold (England, Liverpool)
- Karim Benzema (France, Real Madrid)
- Joao Cancelo (Portugal, Manchester City)
- Casemiro (Brazil, Real Madrid)
- Thibaut Courtois (Belgium, Real Madrid)
- Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Juventus, and then Manchester United)
- Kevin De Bruyne (Belgium, Manchester City)
- Luis Diaz (Colombia, FC Porto, then Liverpool)
- Fabinho (Brazil, Liverpool)
- Phil Foden (England, Manchester City)
- Erling Haaland (Norway, Borussia Dortmund and then Manchester City)
- Sebastien Haller (Ivory Coast, Ajax, and then Borussia Dortmund)
- Harry Kane (England, Tottenham)
- Joshua Kimmich (Germany, Bayern Munich)
- Rafael Leao (Portugal, AC Milan)
- Robert Lewandowski (Poland, Bayern Munich, then FC Barcelona)
- Riyad Mahrez (Algeria, Manchester City)
- Mike Maignan (France, AC Milan)
- Sadio Mane (Senegal, Liverpool, and then Bayern Munich)
- Kylian Mbappe (France, Paris-SG)
- Luka Modric (Croatia, Real Madrid)
- Christopher Nkunku (France, RB Leipzig)
- Darwin Nunez (Uruguay, Benfica, and Liverpool)
- Antonio Rüdiger (Germany, Chelsea, and Real Madrid)
- Mohamed Salah (Egypt, Liverpool)
- Bernardo Silva (Portugal, Manchester City)
- Son Heung-min (South Korea, Tottenham)
- Virgil Van Dijk (Netherlands, Liverpool)
- Vinicius Junior (Brazil, Real Madrid)
- Dusan Vlahovic (Serbia, Fiorentina, and then Juventus)
This year, we may see a change in how winners are chosen in the Ballon d’Or, possibly as a result of criticism of what many believe to be subjective bias in the selection process.
We will take a brief look at the previous voting system and the four changes highlighted by Goal, which seek to change the way winners are selected. But before we do that, let’s take a look at the Ballon d’Or’s old process.
The old process
The old selection and voting system involved the editorial team of France Football, the magazine that presents the Ballon d’Or award, putting together the famous 30-man list like the one above and then putting together a team of journalists representing different footballing nations to weigh the contributions and efforts of each nominated candidate. What includes
- Individual and collective performance during the period of a year, typically from January to December.
- The player’s class (talent, skill level, fair play, and character).
- Evaluation of the general career of the players.
The highest-ranked player wins six points, the second-ranked player four points, and then three points, two and one, respectively, among the top five picks each journalist selects.
After the top five picks are submitted, their points will be added up, and the nominee with the highest number of points will receive the Ballon d’Or prize.
In the event of a tie, players are chosen based on their rank.
The nominee with the most first-place votes is the winner. If the tie is still not broken, their number of second places in the standings is taken into consideration.
And then the number of third places in the standings is taken into account. The last resort is to call the editorial director of France Football to make the final decision since he is the president of the jury.
In addition to the fact that votes from non-soccer-oriented countries like the US or Australia could very well affect the final result, a major problem with this system was the fear that journalists would more often than not be tempted to choose football players from their own country (a kind of subtle bias within the group).
The start of something
Interestingly, some changes have been made to the process this year to improve credibility.
For example, instead of focusing on overall professional performance, it has been modified to reflect the following three major factors:
- Individual performance in a single season.
- Collective performance during the previous season, such as team wins and losses.
- Player behaviour such as fair play and character during the season will also be taken into account.
As mentioned earlier, the four main changes highlighted by Goal.com include:
1. A more consistent schedule
This means that the three main factors listed above will be used to judge players for a period of one season: usually August to July instead of January to December. This means that the Qatar World Cup will count towards the 2023 Ballon d’Or.
2. Even stronger lists
To achieve this, the Ballon d’Or ambassador is also a voter who has shown himself to be the most insightful in the previous edition.
He will now be added to the pool of journalists from France Football and L’Équipe who are tasked with nominating and delivering the final candidates of the players that will make up the 30-man roster.
This year’s selection team included current BdO ambassador Didier Drogba, as well as journalist Truong Anh Ngoc from The Thao & Van Hoa for the men’s team and Karolina Hlavackova from Ruik for the women’s team.
3. A more demanding voting system
Starting this year, “only representatives of the first hundred countries in the FIFA ranking (and the top fifty for women) will be “qualified” to vote” to improve the reliability of the voting system and reduce the rare occasion where votes are being cast by countries not so rooted in the sport.
4. clearer rules
As described in The Start of Something above, the criteria by which winners are chosen have changed. And to borrow directly from the horse’s mouth:
“… Criterion number 1 will focus primarily on individual performance and the decisive and impressive character of the contenders.
Given that football remains a collective sport despite everything, criterion number 2 will focus on the collective performance and the record accumulated during the season.
Finally, criterion number 3 will refer to the player’s class and his sense of fair play because setting an example also counts. The most attentive will have noticed the disappearance of the “player’s career” criterion, a way of considering the race for the Ballon d’Or as an open competition and not as a preserve”.
Goal.com
The award ceremony will take place on October 17 live at the Theater du Chatelet in Paris, France at 2:30 pm ET and will be presented by Televisa.
You can stream it on the L’Equipe YouTube channel.
It is my personal opinion that Ronaldo will not win this year’s awards show, as the awards show has made a point in the past to reward players on and off the pitch.
A video surfaced showing the Manchester United player knocking a phone out of a 14-year-old fan’s hand earlier this year. The Portuguese native is unlikely to win the award for the sixth time, even with the slight modification of the rules.
Given that he’s survived several even more controversies over his career, do you think he’ll be able to get through this? Let us know in the comments.
