the ballondor award has always been known as the most prestigious individual award that you can win as a footballer the best player over the last 12 months receives this trophy at the France football ceremony every single year the likes of Johan C toio van Baston to R9 Messi and Ronaldo the best of the best have won this award for the better part of the last century but over the course of the last few years there's been a rising controversy on the legitimacy of this award no matter how close the race is no matter who ends
up winning it there will be people screaming rigged about who wins the award but this year takes it to another level a controversy that has been unrivaled by any other football ceremony really in the history of the sport something so Grand that one of the biggest clubs no the biggest Club in the history of football decided not to show up in protest of who was winning the award earlier this year I titled a video nobody deserves to win the ballondor in 2024 now obviously that's an exaggeration I don't actually believe nobody should win the balandor
but it was to illustrate a point that the standard of balandor is a little bit lower this year and the Messi vers Ronaldo era is over their individual performances accolades trophies goals and assists are often not going to be imitated we have to go back to choosing humans to win the ballondor and now the standard is much lower so in 2024 even exiting the summer you could still make an argument for balandor for a few different players you had Laro Martinez who was the s a Golden Boot and won that competition with inter he was
the Copa America Golden Boot and won that competition with Argentina scoring the winning goal in the final you also had Killian mbappe despite falling short with PSG and Champions League was the joint top scorer across all leagues with Harry Kane Carvajal won almost every competition he was in including euros and he scored and the Champions League final against Dortmund you had the likes of Jude Bellingham who was a great addition to Real Madrid and had a great first season with them but when it comes down to it there were just two players that everybody really
agreed should win the balandor and it was either going to be one of the two venicius Jr from Real Madrid or rodri from Manchester City and I truly believe that this race for balandor in 20124 wouldn't have been all that different from previous years had it not been for one man fabrio Romano the same guy who's been leaking all of the transfers over the last couple years he's even gone as far as leaking players retirements before they get to themselves which I think might be a bit over the line but who am I to say
he's also been leaking the winner of balandor before the ceremony for the past couple years and he's always been correct until this year because Fabrizio had relayed and reinforced information from Mara a newspaper out of Spain that venicius Jr would win the ballondor now I'm not only blaming Fabrizio Romano in fact I don't even think he's the biggest culprit in this specific scenario but just in general the fact that the media is coming out with this information this early but then it's not even correct is actually a big problem just about five hours before the
ceremony began on October 28th he tweeted that venicius Jr would no longer be traveling to Paris as he had just found out he's not going to actually win the award now personally I don't think that even the players should know if they're going to win the award or not beforehand let alone Fabrizio Romano let alone the fans I think the ceremony would be much much more fun had nobody known the winner of the award before it actually happens but I guess such is football in the modern era we know the winner of these Awards before
they're actually given the award and it kills a little bit of the magic but even when erling howand knew he wasn't going to win balandor last year he still showed up he still applauded lonel Messi and he still congratulated him on winning the award like a professional would do and Matt humos this year finished dead last out of anybody on the short list he was tied for 29th in the ballondor rankings after what I thought was a pretty incredible season at Center back for a 35-year-old he finished dead last and still showed up and showed
his support for not just rodry but all of the award winners the club winners the female bondor winners throughout the day and he was there to show that support yet every single player and every single staff member from Real Madrid decided they weren't going to go to the awards ceremony because venicius Jr finished second now I think I've made it pretty obvious throughout the video that I'm not a huge fan of Real Madrid's decision of not to go to the ceremony in spite of rodri I don't think that it shows very good morals I think
it's classless I think it shows no sportsmanship and it makes everybody involved in that decision and anybody who defends it look pretty bad now I think it's going to be very easy to misconstrue my words and if you're not smart enough to put all of the context together you could come out just surface level and say oh I'm a real Madrid hater when realistically I have absolutely no dog in this fight now let me be clear if your argument is that venicius Jr should have won the balandor in 2024 it's a completely valid argument I
think there's so much substance to that and if that's your opinion it's completely reasonable it's just the fact that there's so many people coming out and saying that it wasn't even close when there is just as valid of an argument for to win and even if Laro Martinez or somebody else like Jude Belling would have won balandor I personally wouldn't have really argued it at all I think that all of these guys are worthy of this award it's just the fact that people like the journalists like fabito romano and Fab Hawkins continually reinforced the idea
that venicius Jr would win this award for the past two months that it raised the hopes of of venicius Jr himself of Real Madrid and of Real Madrid fans across the world that venicius Jr would win this award and then it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath them just a few hours before the ceremony and so Real Madrid didn't show up to collect their best manager of the Year award they didn't collect their the best club of the Year award they didn't get the honors for having so many players in the top
10 of the ballondor rankings they weren't there to support other players and the winner of the balandor who was from Madrid Spain instead they decided to boycott it and play kind of victim to the scenario saying that the only reason venicius Jr didn't win it was due to racism claiming venicius junr didn't win this award due to racism is a bit far-fetched when this exact same organization France football had decorated George WEA as the first ever non-european to win the award and have also given a Brazilian the award six different times in fact usia won
this award all the way back in 1965 now other teammates of Vinnie like Eduardo kaminga claim he didn't win balandor because of football politics now is kaminga implying that it was racism or is this football politics idea a completely separate thing that is outside of football as a reason that venicius Jr didn't win Balon Thor but kaminga didn't provide any evidence or substance or anything to back up his claim and at this point everything that Real Madrid is saying seem more like excuses than they do actual arguments I recogn ize the importance of this award
I understand the emotion that goes into it and how much it means to people even if it is only an individual award but the lack of emotional maturity the lack of professionalism the lack of class that people like Rich Charis and Marta have had on their TI raides on social media the a of Real Madrid their players and staff not going to the ceremony despite having so many awards given to them just because rodri finished first and venicius Jr second this year is honestly unacceptable and a terrible example to any of their fans and the
kids that watch this the only thing that venicius Jr has said ever since declining to even go to Paris for the ceremony after learning he finished second was that he was going to work 10 times harder to win it in the future which is very respectable in itself but given the context of the other actions him and Real Madrid had taken that day it does make it a little bit tougher to root for him in the future but let me know your guys' thoughts down below and hopefully the Real Madrid fans that will watch my
videos are a little bit classier than the ones that I've seen Elsewhere on social media so keep it classy down in the comments and I'll see you guys again in the next video peace out
