Thursday 07/05/2020 CEST(GMT/UTC +2)
Forget the World Cup: The Ballon d’Or is becoming football’s most coveted trophy
The battle for the game's most prestigious individual honour is only likely to intensify in the future, given the elevated status it allows the winner
The race to win the 2020 Ballon d’Or promises to be the strangest yet. As Covid-19 continues to play havoc with the sporting calendar, the amount of football that will be played between now and the end of the year remains up in the air, though it will certainly amount to less than what was expected back in January.
Gone are the European Championship and Copa America. So, too, the Olympics, which could have offered the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Sergio Ramos a chance of a gold medal should their wishes of being selected by France and Spain, respectively, been granted.
The Champions League and Europa League, meanwhile, seem increasingly unlikely to resume, given the issues that come with travelling between countries amid a pandemic. That would leave just domestic football and the handful of European games that took place before the worldwide shutdown on which to judge the best performer of the past 12 months.
Of course, with millions still succumbing to the coronavirus across the globe, debates over the potential winners of individual sporting accolades have taken a backseat. Given the global situation and the lack of football being played, it is not even a certainty that the Ballon d’Or, or any similar prize, will even be awarded in 2020.
However, when the world does eventually return to something much closer to normality, expect social media to once again be awash with supporters claiming their favourite player is deserving of recognition while playing down the achievements of others who could challenge them.
“How about selecting the candidates for next year's Ballon d'Or via Facebook?” asked then-Bayern Munich captain Phillip Lahm when speaking to Goal in 2016. “That would be a modern way of doing it. And the result would probably be the same!”
It is a phenomenon that has arisen during a period in which winning the Ballon d’Or has become something of a closed shop, reserved for just two players who will be regarded among the greatest to ever play the game upon their retirements.
Since 2008, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have won 11 of the 12 Ballons d’Or between them, with only Luka Modric in 2018 able to break their duopoly. For all the toing and froing that generally precedes the presenting of the award, for over a decade picking a winner has almost always involved selecting between an Argentine artist and a Portuguese powerhouse.
“With those players, we've had the two best players of the 21st century,” Pascal Ferre, the editor-in-chief of France Football, who oversee the Ballon d’Or voting process, told Bleacher Report. “Like all great champions, they don't accept second place. They've fought mano-a-mano for 10 years and France Football has benefitted.”
Ronaldo and Messi’s rivalry, coupled with the rise of social media and increased sponsorship opportunities for the world’s best players, means that football is entering an era in which the individual rules. Gone are the days of winning the World Cup being regarded by young players as the pinnacle of their potential careers. Now, the ultimate goal is to be summoned to the stage at an increasingly glamourous awards show in Paris to collect a very different trophy.
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