2018 Ballon D’or: What Went Wrong?
The Ballon D’or is the most prestigious award in soccer, and is held in high respects by both players and fans. However this year it has been hailed as the worst Ballon D’or of all time, so what went wrong? Well, some of the controversy surrounds the rankings that the players received, with Lionel Messi ranking in an abysmal fifth, and Modric winning during a year where he brought Croatia to the world cup final and was (in my opinion) average for Real Madrid. However the largest story from the night was the sexist comments from Martin Solveig towards the first female Ballon D’or winner ever, Ada Hegerberg.
The purpose of the Ballon D’or is to choose who is the best soccer player throughout the whole year as well as the best young player and, as of this year, the best female player. They choose who wins the award by having journalists from 176 different countries pick their top five players. Each position given by the journalist has its own point value (six points goes to the #1 ranked player, four to #2, three to #3, two to #4, and one to #5.) Then, all of the points are tallied and the awards are given.
There were some very questionable choices by certain journalists, one of the most questionable being from the journalist representing the Central African Republic. He ranked Karim Benzema as the best player in the world. Karim Benzema has scored 17 goals in 48 games as a striker. While that’s not a terrible tally he doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near the top 5, let alone number 1. These were the only six points that Benzema had when all of the votes were counted, which means that he was not in any other voters top 5, let alone number 1. The C.A.R. journalist also left out Messi and Modric from his top five. Another voter excluded Messi, Modric and Salah from his ratings, but he chose Firmino, Pogba, Hazard and Kane. Finally, Kyrgyzstan chose Courtois as the best player of 2018.
However the biggest news of the event surrounded the first female Ballon D’or winner Ada Hegerberg. This was an incredibly important event for Ada that was marred by a comment by French DJ Martin Solveig. Solveig asked if Ada “knew how to twerk” as she received the award. She curtly responded “no” and walked away. The backlash from this moment of television was immense, with UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin calling Solveig an “idiot that doesn’t know how to behave” and that he “will never again host such an event”. Solveig was quick to respond to the backlash saying that he “didn’t want to offend anyone” and that his sexist remarks come from a “distortion of my English level and my English culture”. Him blaming the backlash on his knowledge of the English language is very comical, considering that he asked Hegerberg to twerk in French. He also said that one of the reasons that he made this mistake is because he does not know a lot about English culture. However this was not outrage that was reserved for only British or American audiences, in fact Hegerberg herself is Norwegian, and she did not take too kindly to Solveig’s comments.
She quickly replied that she didn’t know how to twerk. For some reason Solveig and co. thought this was hilarious, however ignoring his uproarious laughter she quickly walked off the stage with her prestigious award in tow. This show of class stood out to many as a great way to handle casual sexism in stride as her reaction shone in an event marred by poor choices.
Overall the event was one of the most controversial Ballon D’ors of all time, with many calling into question the relevance that the once important award now has to the players. Whether or not the ceremony will recover from such a catastrophic event this years celebration was is yet to be seen, however I am hopeful that soon the award will be once again something that soccer fans and players look forward to.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/dec/06/ada-hegerberg-ballon-dor-martin-solveig-sexism
