VINICIUS JNR ROBBED?

source

Mr. Carlo Ancelloti decided not to attend the award ceremony after he learnt that Vinicius Jnr would not be awarded the Ballon d'Or, according to COPE.
He was said to state that the rationale behind his decision was him trying to cater for the wellbeing of the player and the team.

The Athletic revealed that "Nike had prepared special boots to celebrate a Ballon d'Or victory for Vinicius Jnr." They had also organised an event preempting his victory.

Ofcourse all these didn't get to happen as Rodri of Manchester City was preferred.

Retired football and former Real Madrid player Clarence Seedorf puts it this way, "I think there's problems between Real Madrid and UEFA."
Vinicius Jnr is the one who certainly deserves the award."

SO WHAT WENT WRONG?

I do not think I know all that went wrong, but I think I know some. Firstly, I must respect what Seedof says above. Sometimes there are deep things a super star former player(also coached by Carlo Ancelloti at AC Milan) and now coach can know.

How the winner of the Ballon d'Or is selected:

Once the shortlist is released, the responsibility of selecting the winner falls to a panel of international journalists. Each participating country gets one vote, with a designated football journalist casting it. For the men’s award, this jury is composed of representatives from 100 highest-ranked countries in the FIFA World Rankings.

At the end of the voting. How every journalist voted is published and made public for transparency sake and never before has anyone who voted said that is not how I voted.

Simply put! It can be influenced but not rigged. UEFA and FIFA have no hands in it. It's purely and entirely a French Football Magazine affair.
END

I'm attracted to the last paragraph, that says, "It can be influenced". What comes to mind is that a duress situation can be created by influencers such that the voting is skewed towards a certain intended candidate. Who are these influencers? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

However, I dare say that those two bodies in the last paragraph who are said "have no hand in it", truly have no hand in it– literally that is– but in a more holistic sense under the umbrella of influencers, they can have some say.

Look let's be real here, Mbappe moved to Real Madrid to stand a better chance of winning the Ballon d'Or. And it's not just about the fact that Real Madrid have made a habit of winning the best competitions, it's also the fact that Real Madrid has an image that looms large over the voting process. I dare say Real Madrid is also an influencer. Other influencers exist too.

Mr. Clarence Seedorf is thus suspecting that there was no synergy between influencers and the ripple effect was that the man Real Madrid was projecting, lost out to Rodri.

NOW TO REAL MADRID

If we may zoom into Real Madrid alone, shall we glean from some available information:

🚩 Vincent Garcia (France Football): "Vinicius suffered from the presence of Bellingham and Carvajal in the top 5. That took away some voting points from him.

This sums up Real Madrid's season, which had been between 3 and 4 players and the journalists shared their decisions between them, which benefited Rodri.”
Source: MadridXtra

Well, the above is something to ponder. Now there was a time Real Madrid were fronting Vinicius and Bellingham at thesame time. I think that was a crucial mistake. Madrid later relegated Bellingham and advertised only Vinicius for the crown, but it was just too late.

Yet I think they were in a difficult circumstance. The boy Bellingham came with an image and impact bigger than what they thought they signed. Quite simply, he overwhelmed them, they didn't really know what they signed.

The fans instantly took to Bellingham and it kind of put the club in a tight corner and they just joined the flow, especially as Vini became injured for few months last season and Bellingham filled in brilliantly.

Bellingham created an impact that even Mbappe hasn't had and it affected Madrid's Vinicius Jnr PR. There was also a Carvajal silently putting up impressive performances.

So sadly, in Msdrid it was more like a house divided against itself.
Was Vini robbed? Well, I didn't come here with an assurance that I have the perfect answer to this question. You judge.

Let me leave you with something different from the topic– a former player I mentioned in this discourse though—

https://youtube.com/shorts/ltqMtTulHYE?si=BBzPdJdBdW7UbRHc
source