Why Football Should Turn Its Back on the Meaningless Ballon D'Or

Cristiano Ronaldo could hardly get his pre-prepared speech out for holding back tears. Standing in front of football’s great and good, assembled in Zurich, the Ballon d’Or, which he had just won for the first time in five years, clearly meant a lot to the Real Madrid winger.

Of course, this was of little surprise. He might not admit as much, but Ronaldo has been motivated by an almost innate desire to topple Lionel Messi as the world’s greatest football player ever since his crown was stolen back in 2009.

The Ballon d’Or is the closest thing football has to an official title of being the world’s best, providing a distinction to the careers of the game’s legends. Therefore Ronaldo achieved his ambition. But should the award be regarded in such esteem? After all, it’s little more than a glorified beauty pageant.

So how is the most prestigious individual award in football decided? Well, that’s the thing. Nobody seems to know for sure. There is no agreed criteria or checklist of what constitutes a Ballon d’Or winner.

For instance, how can the goal-scoring prowess of Cristiano Ronaldo—an attacker—be compared with the shot-stopping achievements of Manuel Neuer—a goalkeeper? There is no common ground between the two players, so how can they possibly be eligible for the same award?

That’s not to say that all individual awards are without worth and credibility. Take the Golden Shoe, for example. The criteria for winning such an accolade is simple: score as many goals in the best league as possible.

“The selection criteria for the players of the year (men’s and women’s) are,” read FIFA’s Ballon d’Or rules, “sporting performance as well as general behaviour on and off the pitch from 30 November 2013 until 21 November 2014.” An open-ended measure, to say the least.

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Even when it comes to the unscientific process of selecting teams of the year, players are at least being judged against their direct peers. Goalkeepers are compared with other goalkeepers, defenders with other defenders, and so on.

Then there is the debate over whether team achievements should be factored into a player’s Ballon d’Or candidacy. Look at the way Franck Ribery was tipped for the award last year, simply through playing for a team—Bayern Munich—that swept all before them in 2013. It’s debatable whether he was even Bayern’s best player that season.

A similar argument is being made for Philipp Lahm and Thomas Muller this year. Both players were instrumental in Germany’s triumph at the World Cup this summer, with Muller in particular impressing. But if the Ballon d’Or truly is an individual award, should team achievements be discounted from the equation?

The Ballon d’Or plays on a fundamental urge sports fans harbour. Football, in essence, is a method of ranking through league tables, scoring charts and passing statistics. The award that anoints the game’s best player, bar none, epitomizes this to the extreme. It is the tedious lifeblood of the Ballon d’Or.

In its initial form, the Ballon d’Or, handed out by France Football magazine, was little more than a compliment paid by writers and experts whose opinions on the matter of football’s greatest were valued.

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But since 2010, when the award and FIFA’s World Player of the Year award were merged, the Ballon d’Or has become a shimmering night on the footballing calendar. And there’s something rather sickly about that.

Ronaldo will likely retain his title as the world’s greatest player, even considering the numbers Messi has stacked up this calendar year, as well as the achievements of Lahm, Neuer and Muller.

The Portuguese winger deserves recognition for what has been an astonishing year, but was the Champions League trophy not enough? Was his 60 goals in 2014 not a stark enough illustration of Ronaldo’s legend?

It’s futile to demand the scrapping of the Ballon d’Or, given how prominent it has become in recent years, but that doesn’t mean it should hold any weight as a credible accolade.