Topic: Is Ballon d’Or objective? - page 3. (Read 777 times)

If we can accept the process of referees officiating matches and we are comfortable with it without questioning if they were bias or their patriotism then I don't think there is need for us to start questioning the way the Ballon d'Or selection is being administered. The Ballon d'Or has been there for ages now, and it will always be there. People should just accept the process the way it is. If we keep questioning the selection process, then every year people are always going to complain. For me the Ballon d'Or doesn't really define a player, neither can it decide how far a player can go. It is just a recognition of how well a player performed in a particular year. Players don't perform excellently every year. That you did well this year doesn't mean you are better than the others.

Unfortunately, this was a very poor approach. I’ll discuss it from the beginning. First of all, you've mentioned that the Ballon d'Or award is biased towards the West. Now, let’s think about this. First, we need to break down the term 'Western bias' into two parts;

The origins of the players and the countries of the winning football clubs. When we look at the last 20 years, we have a list which look like this;

2024 - Rodri (Spain), Manchester City (England)
2023 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Inter Miami (USA)
2022 - Karim Benzema (France), Real Madrid (Spain)
2021 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Paris Saint-Germain (France)
2020 - Award not given (due to the pandemic)
2019 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2018 - Luka Modrić (Croatia), Real Madrid (Spain)
2017 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Real Madrid (Spain)
2016 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Real Madrid (Spain)
2015 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2014 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Real Madrid (Spain)
2013 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Real Madrid (Spain)
2012 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2011 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2010 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2009 - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Barcelona (Spain)
2008 - Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Manchester United (England)
2007 - Kaká (Brazil), Milan (Italy)
2006 - Fabio Cannavaro (Italy), Real Madrid (Spain)
2005 - Ronaldinho (Brazil), Barcelona (Spain)

As you can see here, we have 11 European and 9 Non-European winners. Although this is an exceptional statistic carried by Messi, it doesn't make sense to say that the Ballon d'Or is only Western-biased or Western-favored. When we look at club-based results, apart from the award given to Messi in 2023 (who spent a significant amount of time at Paris Saint-Germain before winning the award that year), all the other teams are European clubs.

We can't find this strange, can we? World football revolves around Europe. Just as the best basketball player each year is likely to come from the NBA, the best players in football will always come from Europe. Moreover, the English, Spaniards, Italians, and Germans you mentioned have the most prestigious leagues in the world. You can't expect the organizers to choose the Player of the Year from the Congo Ligue 1.

It's quite objective for the fact that some party weren't happy for the winner. Also, how real Madrid got to know before the event that their player wouldn't win, is another angle of how unreliable those officiating journalists could be, if the information wasn't held a secret till the final event.

The reason your asking this question is because of the controversy the award has caused in the world of football, now your saying we shouldn't talk about who deserves it between Rodri and vinicius junior, when originally that has been the bone of contention, because if Vinicius junior was awarded the Balloon d'Or, nobody would have raised an eyebrow, I'm sure you yourself OP wouldn't have asked this question.

However let's go the crux of the matter, talking about the award being really objective and reflect the best performing athlete in football. Yes the award is an individual award that recognize an exceptional football player in a calendar season, from the trophies the player has won both for club sides and country, to number of goals he scored and assisted, how skilful he is and whole lot more. Over the years they award has been given to exceptional players in recognition of their contribution in the calendar season.

 Well you can argue about the deciding pattern, the journalist and coaches that vote, but one thing you must always recognize is the fact that UEFA always has their hand in it.

The award is not always reflective of the best player in the world because there are some players who never got the recognition they deserve even though they performed spectacularly well at a time in their career. But also the popular opinion is not always the correct one because for example we all think that Vini Jr deserved it, or any other player in their time, but we are ignorant of all the requirements that the people who decide who should win look at. The difference between one player and another in this award is sometimes by just a fine margin. The objective of this award in another discussion is now being questioned.

People are never satisfied or happy when things don't go their way, a perfect example is Real Madrid boycotting the ceremony because their player didn't win the award, that was disgraceful and lacked class. They forget that sometimes when their players had won it in the past, there was talk of it being unfair, but nobody boycotted the ceremony.

Having said that, there is nothing wrong in how the awards are decided, Rodri deserved it as much as Vini did, and if the award went to him, then it is perfectly fine. Vini did not do things out of this world last season to be considered the undeniable winner.

@Reatim, yesterday I just read the news in a sports magazine about the Ballon d'Or Award, I also have the same question as you, objectively, then I found the answer, instead of having to explain in detail based on sports magazine sources, I will quote the answer to you, I think the answer makes sense to me.

If I think the answer is correct.

Aside from I have seen a thread already about the result of Ballon d’Or, I feel like fans will always have some discussion or disagreement with the result. Was there ever a time that the public agreed on the result? There will always be haters of certain athletes.

But if majority of people agrees then we can say that those who decided were objective enough, no?
Definitely. Discretion should be utmost priority in this because bribery is not at all impossible. I wouldn’t want to think of that happening as it would be so unfair but it can’t be ruled out either.

No, the journalists are meant to make their choice clear to the public from the comfort of their home with either their official social media account or through podcast and the news will spread throughout reaching the Balon D'or representative. If anyone wants to bribe them then they need to reach each of the journalists but that will be stressful. Seriously I am not still certain how any manipulation can be done in the Balon D'or Award. The question that should be asked is how these Journalists get their judgment, is it through

Then the system and how it is being calculated should be made public to the public. This will help keep transparency in the Balon D'or award. If people keep having this mentality and untrustworthiness on Balon D'or system people will start losing interest in the system.

there's always going to be biases in the selection process as long as you assign certain persons to take charge of the balon d'or. Factors like the country certain balon d'or nominee comes from, the team he plays for and his overall personality will certainly influence the final decision of who eventually wins the balon d'or. It's the apex of football recognition and in the built up to that, the media has hard it fair share of over hyping certain player just to project them to the public as one that's worthy of being awarded the balon d'or.

The approach for the voting process is fairly good regardless of whatever biases that's associated with it. Even though the fans sees the quality of most players than what some of these selected journalist sees, Fans can't be allowed to vote because they will allow Thier emotions guide thier decisions. Most of the people that are against the selected people that are in charge of the voting and still feels that the award has lost it credibility are only doing so just because the outcome didn't go in line with what they want. Though the award encourages quality competition among players, the sense of entitlement certain teams have regarding the award with the notion that they must always project a player who stands to win it is contributing to making it look like the selection process isn't being transparent.

Yea, with the way the winning is being selected by 100 journalists, I doubt if it can be very easy to manipulate but no body can tell for real if it was manipulated or not but one thing I know for sure is that nothing is un-do-able once the right force is applied.

I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with his on-field attitude, but more about his on-field performance. Or more specifically, the lack of it.

Brazil had an awful Copa America campaign, while Spain had a good Euros (they won the whole thing). So it makes sense that Vini Jr does not win it. The only people who are mad about this are entitled Real Madrid staffers.

Balon d'Or is pretty meaningless though, it was almost always awarded to Messi or CR7. And when Lewandowski was the favorite to win in the COVID year they just shut it down. 

These 100 journalists come from each country of the latest FIFA rankings. The journalists are specialists and experts. But even before the players are picked by these 100 journalists, other experts already have handpicked 30 players before it even reaches the journalists. Obviously, credibility of these people should not be questioned as they have been working in the sport for a long time and are also interested in maintaining the integrity of the sport.
I can’t think of a better method, to be honest.

We can’t let fans choose certainly as they will be even more biased. They are just going to vote for their favorite athlete no matter what. Maybe there is some patriotism that could affect the juror’s decision but since there’s a lot of them and are from different countries I would say it balances out and at the end the athlete with most points (highest in the order chosen by the jurors) get awarded the ballon d’Or.

We are always curious about how the winner of Ballon d’Or determined.
It is very difficult to be objective since it is determined by journalist who basically aren't the person who understands deeply the nature of football. I guess it is all about the popularity of the player. Or where the player comes from.

It is very possible. I know what you mean, the journalist may pick the best players based on the country. For example: the journalist from Spain probably prefer choosing the players from Spain. This is something very possible to happen, that's why it is difficult to accept the winner of Ballon d'Or. Especially the winner in this year, there was a rumor that Vinicius was the winner but it suddenly changed when it was nearing the day of announcing the winner.

I did expect Vini to win it despite his performance for his country, I'm not against the fact that he didn't perform well but not winning it comes from decision of  those whom I  believe know the analytics of each players performance could judge who is the rightful owner of the title , it's elective and not by nomination so if they say thus is the right owner then it is and you guys should   stop the race thingy, it's a title and that doesn't make him a bad player (if you think he's the best then take it that he's the best player, there'sno need to convince others ), funny how the coach got the best manager and wasn't present to get the award

I don't think a brazilian has won the Ballon d'Or since 2007, the last one was Kaká, I was counting on Vini to win, but some attitudes, as you mentioned, had a big influence, do you think that if a player performs well for his national team, does that count towards winning the Ballon d'Or?

Just to lighten the mood:

There is another topic discussion about Ballon d'Or: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ballon-dor-discussion-and-odds-1707409
Let's discuss only criticism here.

The Ballon d'Or award has been widely criticised for its objectivity and criteria. Although this topic is not a subject of much public debate, it is criticised by fans who want to see their favourite players win it. Critics of the award argue that the voting process is influenced by subjective factors and personal preferences of voters, leading to results that may not accurately reflect reality. The focus on individual statistics rather than collective performance and overall impact on the team is also a major point of contention. In addition, critics point out that the award choice is effected from media and marketing bias, and that its evaluation criteria are unclear and constantly changing. These criticisms raise questions about the award's ability to fairly and objectively determine the best football player in the world.

What should be the solution? Maybe changing the criteria? No one can tell because no one really cares.

Ballon d'Or is western-centric. I looked into the award's history right here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Or

Only once was it given to a black man from what it seems!? In 1995
Football is so beloved in all over the world, with countries in Latin America making it the pride of every neighborhood to support their local team. Yet we only see the reward rotate around English, Spanish, Italian and German players most of the time.

Let alone that, I'm pretty sure the organizers will overlook ambitious players to just create a feedback loop by nominating the most popular players. My generation is bored of the cliche of Messi getting the award and Christiano Ronalo being nominated...

Did I say a player would be willing to give out his entire savings as a kickback for the award? It was you who brought the narrative of the players bribing the journalists. How do you know how much each journalist will ask? And how did you come to the conclusion that the player cannot afford it? However, there is no need to argue in an event that might be impossible to achieve.

You seem to be contradicting yourself because asking us if the award is objective and reflective of the best performing athlete is the same as asking us if Rodri actually deserve to win. Maybe you don't want to come out plane as someone criticizing the process of selection and that is well understood. For me I was not expecting Rodri to win rather I was looking at Vinicius to win because he seems to have played better than Rodri. But the award has process of selection which I don't believe it could be rigged. Those who casted their votes in support of Rodri might have their way of knowing who is the best and I respect that.