The Ballon d’Or rankings have been revealed ahead of the winner being announced. The results from seventh to fifth place have been announced, with Inter’s Lautaro Martinez coming in seventh. The Argentine has had a successful year, having won the Italian championship with Inter and the Copa America with Argentina. He sits behind Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland in the rankings.
Another Inter player, Hakan Calhanoglu, finished in twentieth place, while Ademola Lookman, protagonist of the Europa League final, placed fourteenth. There are no Italians among the 30 players in the running for the award. In twenty-ninth place are Artem Dovbyk and Mats Hummels, both tied. Next up are Grimaldo of Bayer Leverkusen (28th), Vitinha of PSG (27th) and Declan Rice of Arsenal (26th). Further ahead are Cole Palmer of Chelsea (25th), William Saliba and Ruben Dias in 24th and 23rd place respectively, Antonio Rudiger of Real Madrid (22nd) and Bukayo Saka of Arsenal (21st).
Regarding the Ballon d’Or award ceremony, the Real Madrid delegation that was supposed to leave Madrid for Paris cancelled their flight scheduled for the ceremony. The cancellation occurred after president Florentino Perez learned that the award would not go to Vinicius Junior but to Rodri, a Spanish midfielder from Manchester City. This news provoked a strong reaction from Perez, who chose not to attend the event. Other staff members and players such as Jude Bellingham were also supposed to fly with him.
Until this afternoon, it had not been officially announced who had won the Ballon d’Or. An organizer of the ceremony stressed that all the clubs and players involved were unaware of the final outcome due to the strict confidentiality rules adopted for this edition. Real Madrid’s response was firm: they stated that if Vinicius had not been the winner, Carvajal would also have to be awarded according to the same evaluation criteria. The club expressed disappointment regarding the lack of respect towards their team. This year, the organizers chose to keep the identity of the winner secret until the end of the ceremony to avoid leaks to the media.
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