On Monday the 28th of October, France Football and UEFA hosted their annual Ballon d’Or ceremony. This was the first year that UEFA was a direct partner to the awards. The past decade plus has been dominated by Lionel Messi and CR7. Two of the best players ever, and definitely the best that I’ve ever seen. Coming into this year’s ceremony, the candidates had essentially been narrowed down to Vinicius Junior, Rodri, and Jude Bellingham. I, like most others, had been seeing for months how Vinicius Jr. was essentially a lock to win the award. Though there weren’t any credible sources reporting one way or another, there was a strange certainty that a lot of the media had about the Brazilian’s triumph. 

And then boom. The ball drops and the first reports start coming out and they all say the same thing: “Rodri has won the Ballon d’Or”.

-Premier League champion, Club World Cup, UEFA   Super Cup with Manchester City

-Euros winner with Spain

-Euros Player of the Tournament 

– 24 G/A in 56 games 

Rodri’s impact on Manchester City during the ’23-24 season cannot be overstated. He was forced to miss games as a result of a red card vs Nottingham Forest in October. Manchester City proceeded to lose 3 games in English competitions, including their first back-to-back EPL losses since December 2018. He led the EPL in touches, completed passes, and ranked 10th in passing accuracy despite attempting over 600 more passes than anyone else in the top 10. In a season where Kevin De Bruyne, a Mount Rushmore EPL player, missed half of the year, Manchester City won the EPL in large part thanks to Rodri’s contributions. 

I’m not here to talk about Rodri’s candidacy because anyone who questions it is simply ignorant of the impact he brings. What concerns me more is the reaction of Real Madrid and their fans to the Spaniard’s victory. 

It was reported that after learning that Vinicius would not win the Ballon d’Or, Carlo Ancelotti led the push for Real Madrid not to attend the ceremony in protest. Now I can understand Ancelotti’s disappointment and disapproval of the outcome, but to essentially mandate a boycott seems incredibly childish. A lot of the sentiment coming out of the Madrid camp is that the system is rigged against them and that UEFA’s involvement cost them the award. To that I must say, did you not see who won Coach of the Year or Club of the Year? Rodri literally plays for Manchester City, one of the most disliked clubs in all of Europe. Why would UEFA show favoritism towards a player on a team that has taken them to court numerous times? It’s because everything revolves around Real Madrid. There’s no possible way for someone to have won something over them in a close race because they’re “the kings”. They claim to have a winner’s mentality, but in reality, it’s just a case of them being sore losers and making everything about them.

If Madrid were criticizing the method of which the awards are decided, I could at least understand it. Football is subjective and oftentimes biases are involved when journalists from given regions are given license to vote. When you see votes like the El Salvadoran journalist who left Vinicius out of the top 10, you can clearly see there are flaws on how the award is decided. But this has been understood for years now. While it is true that the best players in the world put themselves in consideration for the Ballon d’Or via their on-field play in the previous season. The Ballon d’Or doesn’t always go to the best player; sometimes the narrative surrounding each candidate can supersede rationality. Again, that’s the nature of voting. Just look at any other major sports league that decides the “Most Valuable” through a panel of voters. In nearly every instance, you can point out examples of people who take outside factors into consideration or simply vote one way out of sheer ignorance (see Mark Jackson’s NBA MVP ballot 2023). A vast majority of voters in political elections don’t vote for candidates because of their credentials. Point being, leaving an objective title of “Best” in the hands of subjective opinions will always yield differences than the general consensus. FIFA hosts “The Best” awards in January, which are voted on by players and coaches. You can argue that these yield more accurate results because they incorporate the direct opinions of those who play with and against the top candidates. But you will still see examples of variance and omission in these voters too.

When these awards reveal each vote, it unfortunately gives license to crazy individuals to harass innocent voters for simply stating their opinion. The overwhelming toxicity on social media has become an increasing issue, but in my experience, accounts affiliated with Real Madrid and Barcelona seem to be particularly aggressive and over-represented in these hateful interactions. I’d bet any of you could find one of the posts I’m talking about within 2 minutes of searching for it on any given player’s social media. It’s an age-old truth that giving someone anonymity simply enables them to make incredibly disparaging remarks without threat of reprimand. In the aftermath of the Ballon d’Or announcement, more of the buzz around the ceremony has been directed towards discrediting and insulting Rodri than congratulating all the candidates on their successes. Frankly, it happy for Rodri that he doesn’t have social media. Fans from Madrid have gone on players like Rodrigo De Paul and Rodrigo Bentancur to share abuse, which even further emphasizes my point that people with opinions can be ignorant of critical factors. 

My main issue with Real Madrid’s response to the situation is the level of entitlement that the people at the club act with. No disrespect to Vinicius as a player. He had an incredible season that was more than deserving of winning the award. But the pre-emptive celebrations, the custom merchandise already prepared, and scripted media headlines were all too much for someone who wasn’t even clearly the best player on his team last season. I honestly feel for Jude Bellingham. He was the star of the show for the majority of last season and was immense for England at the Euros. But a few lackluster performances in the final stages of the champions league rendered him out of contention despite his consistency across the footballing calendar. In the months leading up to this, Madrid made it seem like the ceremony was just a gesture for the gifting of Vini’s first Ballon d’Or. When things didn’t go their way, they chose to ignore the ceremony all together, as if some great wrong had been done to them. Like it or not, there was a theoretically meritocracy used to determine the winner, and Vinicius Jr. was judged by those who decided to have had a less impactful year than Rodri. It’s like someone hitting a winner against you in tennis so you just decide to stop playing. When Haaland won a treble with more goal contributions than Vini, he lost out to Messi with far less G/A. He still showed up and congratulated the Argentine just as every runner-up had done before. Why is it now that a runner-up has been so disrespected that it’s cause for a whole team to abandon their previously scheduled participation at the event? With this and the Super League, it’s clear that Real think they’re above the rules and should be able to dictate the wills of everyone in the footballing world. Yet when Barca’s Negreira case gets brought up, they’re the first to cry about abuses of power and cheating. When Modric wins the Ballon d’Or in a year that he doesn’t win an international trophy, it’s “well-deserved”. I just think it’s a case of being such sore losers about a subjective award. I get that Real Madrid wants the reputation of being where the Ballon d’Or winners play at, but there’s something to be said about acting with class regardless of the circumstances. I don’t blame them for being upset, but to attack and make your disapproval so public seems like more of a temper tantrum than a reasonable reaction.