A different period, fewer eligible voters, changed criteria: The Ballon d’Or gets a new look with the upcoming edition – and a special incentive.
Not everyone understood why Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or 2021 and not Robert Lewandowski. Whether it had anything to do with it or not: now the organiser, the French trade magazine “France Football”, has fundamentally changed its voting rules for the traditional and prestigious award. Starting with the new edition, there will be four innovations:
New period: Until now, the nominees were always judged according to their performance in the calendar year. In future, the past season will be decisive. The new Ballon d’Or winner will be chosen as early as October 2022 – based on the 2021/22 season. According to “France Football”, the evaluation period ends with the Women’s European Championship in July. The 2022 Men’s World Cup will only be included in the 2023 vote.
New eligible voters I: Last time 170 media representatives from all over the world were allowed to cast their vote. Now the circle will be limited to the top 100 countries in the FIFA World Ranking. In this way, “France Football” wants to create more “legitimacy and reliability”.
The overall career is no longer a criterion
New Electors II: Those media representatives continue to vote from a previously established shortlist. In future, however, it will no longer be “France Football” journalists alone who compile this shortlist, but two other players: Ballon d’Or ambassador Didier Drogba and – as a special incentive – the media representative who came closest to the final result in the previous election with the points he awarded. That is why the Vietnamese reporter Truong Anh Ngoc is already allowed to take part in the pre-selection in 2022. The top five he chose – Messi, Lewandowski, Jorginho, Benzema, Kanté – was the top five in 2021 even after all the votes were counted.
New criteria: Until now, a) the player’s sporting performance in the calendar year (individually and in club and national team), b) his talent and sportsmanship, and c) the overall career were to be judged. Now, the first criterion is the nominees’ individual performance, the second is their performance with the team and the third is their talent and sportsmanship. So there is a clearer order – and the overall career is explicitly no longer to play a role in the assessment.
