The Ballon d’Or has long been seen as one of the most valuable individual awards in football. Lionel Messi extended his record for the most number of wins, claiming his seventh award ahead of Robert Lewandowski.
And this year, the criteria for awarding the Golden Ball are set to undergo a change.
France Football’s editor-in-chief Pascal Ferre confirmed in L’Equipe that there will be four major changes in deciding who wins the Ballon d’Or from the 2021/22 season. Here are the four changes that were made this season.
Four changes to the Ballon d’Or from this season
Firstly, and most importantly, the award will only take into consideration the European calendar season which ends in June 2022. So, the World Cup will be taken into consideration from the 2023 edition of the award. It also helps create a more specific and equal timeframe for comparing the performance of individual players.
Next, Didier Drogba, Truong Anh Ngoc, and Czech juror Karolina Hlavackova have been added alongside the list of journalists to help combine the nominees for the award.
Thirdly, only the representatives of the first 100 countries in the FIFA rankings for the men’s award and the first 50 for the women’s will be permitted to vote.
The Ballon d’Or will also take into consideration the collective performance and the ‘class’ of a player alongside their fair play record. The reputation and past success of players will not be taken into consideration when determining their ranking in the final ceremony.
