France Football Announces Changes to Ballon d’Or Award

The Ballon d’Or will undergo significant changes ahead of the next award ceremony. 

France Football, the outlet that awards the Ballon d’Or at the end of each year, announced Friday that the award will now follow the regular European season rather than the calendar year. 

That means that the next Ballon d’Or will encompass the 2021–22 season, which ends with the women’s Euros in July, and will not include the 2022 World Cup. 

Among the other changes are restricting the voting to journalists from the first 100 nations in the FIFA world rankings for the men’s award and the first 50 in the rankings for the women. Last year, 180 journalists in total voted for the men’s award. 

As far as the voting criteria goes, France Football confirmed that it will be based first on individual performance, followed by team performance and fair play. Meanwhile, it said that a player’s reputation and performance from past years should not influence voting.

The French magazine awarded the first Ballon d’Or in 1956 and started the Ballon d’Or Féminin in 2018. Lionel Messi has won the most the trophies in history with seven, including last year, followed by Cristiano Ronaldo’s five. Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas took home the Ballon d’Or Féminin last year. 

In December, Messi made headlines during his acceptance speech for saying that Robert Lewandowski also deserved the award after the Polish international broke Gerd Müller’s single-season Bundesliga goalscoring record with 41 goals.

“I want to tell Robert that it is an honor for me to be up against him,” Messi said. “You deserve your Ballon d’Or. Last year everyone agreed that you were the winner. I think France Football should give you your Ballon d'Or so you can have it like you deserve.

"Hopefully France Football can give it to you to have in your home, because you were the true winner if it weren’t for the pandemic. You should have one in your house too.”