The Ballon d’Or completes its descent into meaningless, offensive football ‘content’
Messi won his eighth Ballon d’Or as Haaland watched on. Someone called Speed was an embarrassment. And women’s football was an afterthought again.
The tedious process that has been the Ballon d’Or this season is finally over with Lionel Messi winning a record-extending eighth award. On what is meant to be football’s most prestigious night, the chat instead was about an 18-year-old streamer, football’s continued move towards ‘content’ and its terrible treatment of women players once again.
Before we get to that, though, let’s talk about the winner himself. Of course, Messi is the best player of this generation and possibly ever (can only go off who you have seen in truth) but was he really the best player of the entire 2022/23 season?
He dominated the World Cup, which obviously matters hugely and was a career-defining moment for him, but what else did he do? PSG did absolutely nothing of note and he is now plying his trade in the walking pace MLS.
READ MORE: Why Ballon d’Or hogger Lionel Messi has actually scored zero proper goals for Argentina
His nearest challenger, on the other hand, Erling Haaland, scored 52 goals, broke the Premier League era goals record, top-scored in the Champions League and won every single individual award possible during the club season. And oh yeah, he won the Treble with Manchester City, even if that will be asterisked until those 115 charges are ‘dealt’ with.
His club teammates Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri came fourth and fifth respectively, just behind Kylian Mbappe, who had the greatest-ever World Cup final showing against Messi himself.
As often can happen, teammates can cancel one another out, with votes being shared across the City board but both Haaland and Rodri do have a right to feel aggrieved. Only two Premier League-based players have won the award since George Best in 1968: Michael Owen in 2001 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008.
Oh well, at least Haaland was given the Gerd Muller striker of the year award, the ultimate consolation prize ever since it was pathetically created for Robert Lewandowski when he was utterly robbed in 2020, when they decided not to pick a winner due to the COVID pandemic.
For many, that was the moment the Ballon d’Or lost a large amount of its prestige but there are other factors, chiefly the number of awards there are and the likes of Fabrizio Romano spoiling the ceremony by leaking results in the weeks and days before. Also, who cares who the 10th best keeper in a season was? Complete filler.
There is already the FIFA ‘Best’ awards, which took place way back in February and don’t cover the same period. Messi won both in the men’s while two Spanish stars split the women’s honours, but we will get to that shortly.
This oversaturation of everything in football is what is turning into pure content and moving it away from its roots, and the presence of YouTube streamer *checks notes* Speed at the front and centre of the event perfectly encapsulated that.
Why was he there? Yes, he has a large following online, but he has nothing to do with football and already had a failed run on Sky Sports last season, where he helped the continued transition from serious football to ‘banter’.
Videos of him reacting in overly dramatic and embarrassing fashion to Messi winning the award, making other players uncomfortable and generally being a nuisance have circulated across social media. At least, Messi’s wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, gave him absolutely nothing. Beside any great man is a greater woman.
🚨| WATCH: Lionel Messi's wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, ignored Speed when he asked for a picture pic.twitter.com/LlZp1G3qcE
— Speedy HQ (@iShowSpeedHQ) October 30, 2023
His interactions with Novak Djokovic at a football event felt like a simulation but at least the Messi of tennis (?) made a fool of the streamer, telling him he was an AC Milan footballer. It’s hard to know if Speed is putting it on or not but the guess would be not.
Speaking of Djokovic, for some baffling reason, he was selected to present the Women’s Ballon d’Or to Aitana Bonmati, which was well-deserved after a stunning season with Barcelona and Spain, in which they won the Champions League and World Cup respectively.
Her teammate, Alexia Putellas, won the ‘Best’ award earlier this season, which doesn’t make much sense.
Anyway, as mentioned, football’s terrible treatment of women has been laid bare in recent months with everything that happened with the Spanish team. So what do they do days after disgraced ex-president Luis Rubiales is banned for three years? Have no female representation, not even have the trophy ready for Bonmati to pick up and select a tennis player who advocated against equal pay in his own sport, of course. At least pretend to care.
It all made for a shambolic event, made even worse given it came alongside a brilliant tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton, led in great fashion by David Beckham, who had a deep connection and long history with the Manchester United legend.
Gary Lineker and Didier Drogba also had a nice moment, even if it was made laughable by the Ballon d’Or official Twitter account incorrectly labelling the former the 1986 winner of the award only to get community noted.
Lineker did pointedly say “the game is good shape on the pitch” and Drogba dancing to the Match of the Day song was also brilliant. Two of the better guys.
The night overall painted a perfect picture of how football has changed and only for the worse. Charlton, especially, was everything good about the game, both on and off the pitch, and a former Ballon d’Or winner himself.
The events of last night showed that football is more ‘content’ than serious sport at this point in the corrupt eyes of Gianni Infantino and his cronies. Cash and content rules everything around me?
Perhaps it was only right Messi won it, given it marks the end of an era for both him and probably the game as a result. Who only know what comes next? Outside of confirmation of a clearly corrupt and wrong Saudi World Cup in 2034. Times are good for the so-called beautiful game.
