Ballon d’Or Point Totals Make Franck Ribery Unhappy.
By: chris | December 3rd, 2008
The Ballon d’Or is nothing if not a lightning rod for controversy and year-long verbal sparring matches with inflatable gloves. Yes, some deserving players win it. Others not so deserving also win it. In short, it’s like nearly every other award handed out by any other organization in the world.
But perhaps worth the debate is to get inside the minds of the journalists who vote on the award through the actual point totals. A bunch of journalists who have pissed off Franck Ribery.
The “shortlist” of 30 was whittled down to 26 because four players didn’t receive a single vote (nor a lovely parting gift, which is equally as cruel).
The points list:
1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Manchester Utd), 446 points
2. Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona), 281 pts
3. Fernando Torres (Spain, Liverpool), 179 pts
4. Iker Casillas (Spain, Real Madrid), 133 pts
5. Xavi Hernandez (Spain, Barcelona), 97 pts
6. Andrei Arshavin (Russia, Zenit St Petersburg), 64 pts
7. David Villa (Spain, Valencia), 55 pts
8. Kaka (Brazil, Milan), 31 pts
9. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden, Internazionale), 30 pts
10 Steven Gerrard (England, Liverpool), 28 pts
11. Marcos Senna (Spain, Villarreal),16 pts.
12. Emmanuel Adebayor (Togo, Arsenal), 12 pts.
13. Wayne Rooney (England, Manchester United), 11 pts.
14. Sergio Aguero (Argentina, Atletico Madrid), 10 pts.
15. Frank Lampard (England, Chelsea), 8 pts.
16. Franck Ribery (France, Bayern Munich), 7 pts.
17. Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon, Barcelona), 6 pts.
18. Gianluigi Buffon (Italy, Juventus), 5 pts.
19. Michael Ballack (Germany, Chelsea), Cesc Fabregas (Spain, Arsenal), 4 pts.
21. Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast, Chelsea), Sergio Ramos (Spain, Real Madrid), Nemanja Vidic (Serbia, Manchester United), 3 pts.
24. Edwin van der Sar (Netherlands, Manchester United), Ruud van Nistelrooy (Netherlands, Real Madrid), 2 pts.
No votes: Karim Benzema (France, Lyon), Pepe (Portugal, Real Madrid), Luca Toni (Italy, Bayern Munich), Rafael van der Vaart (Netherlands, Real Madrid), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia, CSKA Moscow).
And this list doesn’t please Franck so much.
“Frankly, I am disappointed by my ranking. I should have deserved better.
“Last year, I finished seventh having played six months for Marseille and six months at Bayern, without having won any titles.
“Here, I am 16th in the list at the end of a massive season with Bayern. We were champions of Germany, won the national cup and reached the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup.
“I also picked up a number of individual awards, for example the best player in the Bundesliga. I achieved something amazing but you have to accept the verdict.”
Almost refreshing to see an athlete spout off at not being given his due credit for his individual performances. Almost. But the rank of Ribery at 16 is criminal, and really does nothing to help give this award any sort of credible legitimacy. He was an immense success at Bayern as far and away the best player for a team which cruised to the title and only lost 2 league games all year. Some even thought he was the deserving winner of the Ballon d’Or.
Even more, though, is that this reflects poorly on France, the country which produced France Football (duh), the award organizer. Only one with a vote and he comes in 16th place. Doesn’t appear there was any hometown rigging, does it? Which, I suppose, is one of the few good things we can say about the Ballon d’Or.
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Category: World Football
Tags: Andrei Arshavin, Ballack, Ballon dOr, Buffon, Cristiano Ronaldo, David Villa, Dider Drogba, Emmanuel Adebayor, Fernando Torres, Franck Ribery, Frank Lampard, Iker Casillas, Kaka, Lionel Messi, Marcos Senna, Samuel Etoo, Sergio Aguero, Steven Gerrard, World Football, Xavi, Zlatan IbrahimovicSubscribe
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Comments
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This is the second time this photo has come up, and both times I have no idea what it says. Can anyone help us non-German speakers out?
Posted from
United States
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Why is it “criminal” that ribery finished 16th? who really cares. no one actually believes the “accuracy” of the top 20 is exact… there are so many variables and factors involved (like college sports rankings in the US) that outside of the top 5 or 10 it’s a crapshoot.
ribery turned a non-story into sour grapes, in my opinion. the top 5 are SPOT on – and who really cares about the rest – do you think the sportswriters really started paying attention at no 15 or no 20 – and is there really a huge difference between 12 and 17, etc…
in my opinion, Ribery needs to move on. He is superbly talented, but not close to the top 3 or 5 footballers in the world.
Posted from
United States -
I *think* it says “Bayern has only one king.” Wieder is a word I’m not familiar with.
Posted from
United States -
Just gotta deal with it dude. If he really is good, he should just move on and let his footballing do the talking.
Posted from
United States -
Why is it “criminal” that ribery finished 16th? who really cares. no one actually believes the “accuracy” of the top 20 is exact… there are so many variables and factors involved (like college sports rankings in the US) that outside of the top 5 or 10 it’s really random…
ribery turned a non-story into sour grapes, in my opinion. the top 5 are SPOT on – and who really cares about the rest – do you think the sportswriters really started paying attention at no 15 or no 20 – and is there really a huge difference between 12 and 17, etc…
In my opinion, Ribery needs to move on. He is superbly talented, but not close to the top 3 or 5 footballers in the world.
Posted from
United States -
i think the assumption that c-ron would win probably vastly effected the voting. the fact that he has won a bunch of other stuff possibly made the voters sway for him. i think he deserved it, but that margin is sooo one sided. lets just hope that next season we see some diversity in the award winning, otherwise it’s just boring.
Posted from
United States -
even more ‘criminal’…
Cesc Fabregas’ 19th. He was Arsenal last season. Really, if it weren’t for him they’d be no where near competition for title and reaching quarters of the CL. Also how can they put Iker Casillas as 4th when van der Sar is 24th? Casillas IMO should be at least 9th, and at most 6th. If Casillas is 4th van der Sar should be 10th or better.Posted from
United States -
The caption says “Bayern has a king again.”
Posted from
United States -
The Australian Football League (not soccer) has the best way of deciding the player of the year. After every match, the match officials (refs and linesman in our case) vote on the best player giving 3 votes to the best, 2 for second, 1 for third. These are recorded and kept secret until the end of the season when in a big gala event the votes are tallied and the winner dtermined. The points counting actually makes for some suspenseful viewing.
Posted from
Australia -
The caption says “Bavaria has a king again”, referring to the fact that the last king of Bavaria (or Bayern in German) drowned, and there hasn’t been one since.
Posted from
Canada -
Barca should bring him in, sell Henry, and officially have the coolest team in the world…
Posted from
United States -
its funny when someone named franck starts talking with “frankly”
Posted from
United States -
I think Ibracadabra said it all in three words: “who really cares”?
The Ballon d’Or is meant to declare ONE winner, the guy picking up the golden round thing at the end of the year. No one remembers 2nd, 3rd or 16th places. That’s just ego messin’ with you.
Posted from
United States -
Right on, Marco. The only case where I remember the runner-up was 2006.
Posted from
United States -
It’s very simple. These awards are given to players playing on only three countries: Spain, Italy, England. And usually just Spain or Italy. Other leagues are ignored by the world media. These awards are voted by people (journalists, players, etc.) who actually pay little attention to most football around the world, they just pay attention to the big names and leagues and that’s it. Ribery definitely deserves a higher ranking. He achieved a LOT last season in one of the world’s biggest leagues, in Europe’s most populous country. But if you play in Germany, you’re ignored.
Posted from
United States
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