Cristiano Ronaldo will receive his fifth Ballon d’Or in Paris on Thursday night, bringing him level with Lionel Messi.
He’d already equalled the Argentinian for Golden Shoes won and Champions League titles secured, but this most recent award will mean the most to him, putting him on a level playing field with a man that many suggest is the best to have ever played the game.
It also sets things up nicely for a 2018 shoot-out, with a World Cup to be won on top of club honours.
In any event, one has to pose the question as to whether this is an award worth winning any longer?
Let’s face it, that the likes of Sergio Ramos, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta have never won the gong is a travesty. Furthermore, now that there is FIFA’s ‘The Best’ to rival France Football’s offering, it’s taken the shine from how important this award appeared to be in season’s past.
Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Sepp Blatter decided to reopen voting after Ronaldo fired Portugal to a World Cup play-off win over Sweden back in 2013. With Messi certain to win the award that year (after the initial round of voting was later revealed), such a move from the then FIFA president left a sour taste in a lot of mouths.
Fast forward to the present day, and though the way votes are cast has changed, it’s still open to interpretation.
Before it was voted for by a mixture of national team captains, managers and media, and now only members of the press get to vote. However, there will obviously still be bias towards one player or another.
Surely, in order to earn what is effectively the title of ‘best player in the world,’ there needs to be a set of definable metrics on which to measure any and every player’s performance.
Winning trophies has its merits, of course, as do scoring goals in important matches or providing assists. But what about how influential a certain player is across the whole period on which the award is judged?
How can it be, for example, that players who explode into life in the latter stages of tournaments but are relatively quiet for much of the rest of the time, would take preference over someone who has clearly influenced the upward trajectory of his club?
By invoking a ‘points system’ or similar for all manner of aspects in the game that can be affected by a player, surely that not only makes the award more desirable, but actually rewards those who deserve it, rather than, perhaps the biggest names.
