As the current season is almost approaching its end, the footballing community are slowly turning their focus to the Ballon d’Or award for the present campaign.
While supporters have their opinions on the winner, behind the scenes there is a meticulous selection process that ultimately decides the winner of the award.
As per sources, firstly, a 30-man shortlist is prepared by the editorial team of France Football. Following this, an assembly of journalists representing a variety of footballing nations vote based on the rules and regulations published by France Football as criteria for the season’s winner. Once voting is concluded, the votes are tallied up to complete the ranking and determine the winner of the Ballon d’Or.
While this has been a democratic process to determine the winner, not all fans have agreed with the journalists’ pick for the winner in the past. When a large majority of football fans were backing Robert Lewandowski to pick up the award last season after missing out on 2020 due to Covid despite his treble with Bayern, it was Lionel Messi who picked up his 7th record-breaking award.
Other stars from the past such as Wesley Sneijder in 2010 were also the fans’ pick for the year but perhaps the player’s achievements failed to convince the journalists in the age of the Messi vs Ronaldo rivalry.
In this context, the votes for the winner have become a tricky choice for journalists over the years with each year fans almost getting louder with their disappointment at the choices. Given this topsy-turvy background, it looks like British social media star and football YouTuber Theo Ogden might receive the voting rights for the current season’s Ballon d’Or as the youngster revealed on a podcast recently.
While on air with Watford goalkeeper and host of Fozcast Podcast, Ben Foster to present his PL Team of the Season, Ogden made the big reveal that he might be able to represent Montenegro as their journalist and cast a vote for the award.
“We helped live in Montenegro and every summer we go there for 2-3 months and they have some random geezer who does it (votes). So, I’ve written to L’Équipe and said ‘can I represent Montenegro’ and they are basically considering it… and the guy has responded, their main editor on Instagram who said ‘yeah you can do it,” remarked Ogden live on the podcast.
Ogden’s comments came as a surprise to host Foster and the rest of the fans tuning in to the podcast and the Brit also joked that he intends to vote for Lionel Messi for this season as a way to rile up Ronaldo fans. However, one fan pointed out that Ogden later revealed that his actual pick would be Karim Benzema for the award.
While the revelation from Ogden has not impressed many fans as they feel that the voting should be done by more experienced journalists. With the award’s winner set to be announced in October, fans will have to wait to find out if Ogden does indeed chooses Benzema over his beloved Messi.
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