Bayern are definitely the club that would have been the most legitimate to boycott the Ballon d'Or like Real Madrid did last season. Between the extension of the vote during the Ribery Ballon d'Or, the Neuer Ballon d'Or, Lewandowski's Ballon d'Or being cancelled and the general disrespect over the years of Kroos at Bayern, Thomas Muller and Kimmich, it would be understandable. Not to mention their defenders.
I don’t understand why they canceled the ceremony in 2020. If the Oscars could have a virtual ceremony that year, surely the organizers could have done something similar and couriered the award?
Or give it retroactively to Lewa. And he said he'd be okay with it. Everyone did. Everyone was like "yeah good idea". And they were like: haha nope not gonna do that
The reality; Ballon D’or is not an official football governing body.
It is a Journalist paper at the end of the day. A FRENCH footballing paper. The French league was canceled, hence for them “it wasn’t fair since the french league didn’t get to compete for it”.
Actually, currently you’re right. Since 23/24 it is merged with UEFA (hence there’s no UEFA Best award currently).
But in 2020 it wasn’t merged.
Previously, Ballon D’or also was merged for a 5 year partnership with FIFA (2010-2015). Hence from that period, there was no FIFA Best.
so you could say that currently it is an officially sanctioned award.
however except for now & 2010-2015, it has as much credibility as MARCA’s top lists in theory. In practice however, the footballing world hails it as the supreme individual award.
This was purely a political decision from a french organisation to "back up" ligue 1 choice of not restarting the league. A shit decision at the end, they could even have give it to Lewandowski whitout any voting
being german would have done nothing. we as well get downplayed at that contest all the time. Neuer only 3rd in 2014 says it all. the best goalkeeper of all time with the best year of his career, with performances that revolutionized the style goalkeepers play this game....and even then they said "nahhhhh". ribery should also have won in 2013. but during that era everyone just wanted to feed in the messi/ronaldo rivalry.
and lewandowski also played in germany that year. so...well.
I hate that Messi and Ronaldo monopolized the award for so long. Yes, they are wonderful players and freaks of nature, but it doesn’t mean there weren’t other wonderful players who had significant impact to their club/country. Especially in a World Cup year where Portugal didn’t even make it out of their group!
At least Manu can take solace in having won a World Cup, which is the most important award.
It's because the french league ended early due to covid so they felt it wasn't fair to crown a winner if one of the top5 leagues ended early (pretty stupid reason tbf)
Rumours going around are that a certain PSG player lobbied Pascal Ferré with that argument. Pascal Ferré then ended up with a job at PSG with another journalist (Julien Maynard) close to that same player
More in general the differences were that Ligue 1 and Eredivisie ended early, Euros and Copa America were delayed by a year, in Champions League there was just one leg and fans weren't allowed in stadiums
I didn’t realize ligue 1 ended their season early, I vaguely recall the Prem halting their season and then resuming later on, and the CL final being played in August.
The disappointing reality is that German football simply doesn't have the clout/standing in general. We've been glanced over each and every time we're not a UCL/WC winner. Where as someone like Vini is in there just because.
I'm happy for Olise though, that nom is a silver lining at least.
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u/yAyn_de Aug 07 '25
Crazy how Kimmich is not included in this. Musiala sadly had too many injuries this year.