Word to Florentino Pérez. The president of Real Madrid, on the occasion of today’s shareholders’ meeting of the club, wanted to dedicate a few minutes to the issue Golden Ballconquered by Rodri and taken away from Vinicius Junior, a decision that led to the merengues to defect to the awards ceremony in Paris: “Rodri is a great footballer. He has all our respect, but I’ll tell you something. Tuttosport wrote: ‘The Ballon d’Or should have been for Real Madrid. This year they awarded Rodri for his performances last season’. He deserves the Ballon d’Or, but not this year he deserved it last year, when he won the treble with Manchester City”, the number one’s spicy debut of Real Madrid.
Continuing with the explanation: “The readers of L’Equipe gave Vinícius as the favourite. It is surprising that the UEFA statement states that the voting system had remained unchanged. They have changed the voting system. It is surprising that, given that football is a global sport, there are countries in which journalists with less than a million inhabitants can vote now,” said Florentino, who highlighted gaps in the Ballon d’Or voting system.
Not only that. The Real Madrid president also spoke about the publication of the 2024 Ballon d’Or results: “There are also journalists who have given up voting for this award, as in the case of the Finnish. I must say that I am grateful to them. There are journalists who no one knows about them and who this year were able to vote; without the votes of journalists from countries like Uganda, Namibia, Albania and Finland, Vinícius would have won this Ballon d’Or”, he replied in a piqued tone.
Commenting decisively on the issue: “The system must change and there must be recognized people who put their prestige on the line with those votes. Let everyone understand that journalists put their reputation on the line with their vote, we don’t know who voted and there are countries that don’t even we know; due to all these circumstances, we did not participate in the Ballon d’Or Gala.”