August 13, (THEWILL) – The Ballon d’Or organisers has acknowledged that Lionel Messi’s first season with Paris Saint-Germain was not good enough to get him on the shortlist for the 2022 prize unlike rival, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi’s disappointing first season in Paris ended with him failing to make the final 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d’Or for the first time in 17 years. He finished the season with 11 goals and 15 assists in 34 games, a dismal total by Messi’s immensely high standards.
A cross section of incensed football fans reacted to the decision to leave Messi off the shortlist, and France Football, the organisation behind the award, quickly put together a Q&A session to try to clarify and give answer to their queries. They said: “Lionel Messi, with his 15 appearances in a row since 2006, his seven Ballon d’Or victories, his title holder status, weighs very heavily when it comes to the final choice.
“The Argentinian was part of the discussions to integrate the 30, but the new criteria for the Ballon d’Or were unfavourable to him: disappearance of the criterion of a player’s entire career, and new periodicity, modelled on a season of football and no longer over a calendar year, which does not make it possible to integrate the Copa America of July 11, 2021. And then, it must be admitted that his first season in Paris was very disappointing both in terms of the visual impression and the statistics.”
To explain the inclusion of Ronaldo, organisers said: “Ronaldo became the top scorer in national football this season. He was extremely decisive in the Champions League group stage with four off-the-cuff goals that gave Man Utd seven points. In the Premier League, he has 18 goals including two hat-tricks. In total, 32 goals in 49 matches is not as many as in his best seasons but enough to be among the 30 best players in the world.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
