France Football claim Real man ‘suffered’ from teammates for Ballon d’Or as boycott causes stir

Aadam Haladh
Vinicus Real Madrid
Vinicius Jr in the Classico

Tuesday nights Ballon d’Or ceremony caused quite the stir as Florentino Perez and Real Madrid threw their toys out of the pram in shameful fashion.

Real’s Vinicius Jr. had been told at the 11th hour he would no longer be winning football’s most prestigious individual award, with Manchester City’s Rodri crowned the best player in the world, which led to Perez, manager Carlo Ancelotti and players Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius himself not travelling to Paris.

Vini’s teammates Eduardo Camavinga, Aurelien Tchouameni and Eder Militao all took to social media, as well as Ancelotti, usually the calmest man in football, who also seemingly lost his cool.

Vincent Garcia, editor-in-chief of France Football however, feels Vinicius only has his own teammates to blame.

Garcia said: “Vinicius surely suffered from the presence of Bellingham and Carvajal in the top five because, mathematically, that took away some points from him. This also sums up Real Madrid’s season, which took between three and four players and the judges shared their decisions between them, which benefited Rodri.”

Bellingham finished third, while boss Ancelotti was awarded manager of the year and Madrid the best club prize, though no representatives from the club were there to collect their awards after Perez had made an executive decision early on Tuesday to boycott the ceremony.

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Vinicius and Bellingham were set to take their seats in the front row, though footage surfacing across social media showed their name tags had been removed ahead of the presentation.

Garcia continued: “I had a lot of pressure from Real Madrid but, as with other clubs, I was always clear, fair and perhaps my silence pushed them to the limit.”

He added: “But it was the same as with the others. I was very unpleasantly surprised by his absence.”

For City, it is a first ever Ballon d’Or winner in Rodri, who played a crucial part in their fourth successive Premier League title win, as well as winning the Euro’s in the summer with Spain.

Rodri’s crowning will come as a bittersweet moment to City fans with the Spanish midfielder set to miss the entirety of the season with an ACL injury, and the award will only remind them of his importance.

As for Madrid, the wounds may have deepened after rivals Barcelona enjoyed quite the night too just days after being thrashed 4-0 in the Classico, as Lamine Yamal won the Kopa trophy, while Aitana Bonmati claimed her second successive women’s Ballon d’Or too.

Real Madrid Jude Bellingham

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