Michel Platini, Franck Ribery and the alleged injustice of the Ballon d’Or
Michel Platini
Just when you thought UEFA President Michel Platini must be running out of things to complain about, he defies expectation and finds something anyway.
This month, Platini has set his sights on the most famous annual player of the year award in world football; the FIFA Ballon d’Or. After Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded with his second Ballon D’Or trophy this January, the UEFA President and bane of football’s existence felt a need, as he often does, to chime in with his selective and ridiculous opinion.
Platini informed the football world that he’s concerned with the Ballon d’Or since it was merged with the World Player of the Year award by FIFA in 2010. His concern is predicated on the lack of weight given to team trophies and accomplishments in the voting, based on the fact that fellow countryman Franck Ribery did not win the award for 2013 despite winning numerous trophies with Bayern Munich.
Platini said, “Cristiano Ronaldo is a very good Ballon d’Or winner but, if it continues like that, we’ll come back next year and it will be Messi or Ronaldo and, the year after, Ronaldo or Messi.
“For 50 years, the Ballon d’Or took into account trophies won on the pitch but something has changed since FIFA took it over. That a Spanish player didn’t win in 2010 after the World Cup and that Franck would not be recognized even though he won everything – that poses a problem.”
Illogical Platini
Platini’s shot at FIFA (and at Messi and Ronaldo) is ludicrous for a number of reasons. For a start, in the four years that FIFA have had control of the Ballon d’Or, Lionel Messi has won three times and Cristiano Ronaldo once.
Until Ronaldo’s award for 2013, nobody complained about the system. Messi was the undisputed best player in the world for those three years, and he justifiably won the award that crowned him as such each time. It would have been far more controversial if Messi had not won the award in those years. Therefore, to say that there has been a problem “since FIFA took it over” makes absolutely no sense.
Secondly, the Ballon d’Or has nothing to do with a team. The criterion for the award is that it is given annually to the player who is considered to have performed the best in the previous year. The key words there are player and performed best. It does not say team, and it does not mention winning.
Sir Stanley Matthews, recipient of the first ever Ballon D’Or award
Whilst team accomplishments are often a good indicator of a player who can influence his team and lead them to glory, it should not be the major consideration for establishing who the most talented player has been in world football over the previous twelve months.
If a player outshines all of his peers, it seems logical that he should be awarded with the Ballon d’Or regardless of who he plays for and whether they have won any trophies. A great example of this is Sir Stanley Matthews, the first ever recipient of the original Ballon d’Or award in 1956.
At the time, Matthews played for Blackpool in the English First Division. He won nothing with the ‘Seasiders’ that year, finishing second in the league and losing in the third round of the FA Cup. Regardless, he was almost indisputably the greatest player on earth at the time and so the award was duly justified.
The same situation existed this past year, as Ronaldo failed to win a single trophy with Real Madrid but was undoubtedly the most dangerous player on the planet.
Finally, and perhaps most crucially, the recipient of the award is not FIFA’s decision. All voters, consisting of managers and international captains, are free to vote on the ballot in the way that they choose. It is a democratic system. While it seems, therefore, that Platini is attacking FIFA, what he is actually doing is attacking the integrity of every manager and international captain in world football who did not vote for Franck Ribery. UEFA President or not, who is Michel Platini to tell people how to vote?
Platini’s insistence on manufacturing a controversy where none exists in this matter is baffling. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Ribery is French, and so he feels a need to come to the aid of his fellow countryman. Whatever the case, it was an ill-advised but predictable move by a man who, over the years, has turned souring his own public image with thoughtless opinions into an art form.
No humility in Ribery
Platini is not the only person making himself look foolish with these complaints. Franck Ribery himself, in an act lacking completely in humility and grace, lessened himself in public perception by coming out and echoing what the UEFA President had already whined about.
The 2013 FIFA Ballon D’Or finalists. (From left to right – Cristiano Ronaldo, Franck Ribery, Lionel Messi)
Ribery reportedly told AZ “I won everything I could win with Bayern and individually. Ronaldo, on the other hand, did not win anything. I am not sad that I missed out, but it does hurt a bit. I deserved to win the Ballon d’Or….It wasn’t about football. It was a political decision.”
Ribery is wrong, of course. While he had a magnificent year in 2013 and was indeed a big part of Bayern’s accomplishments, on an individual level he did not outshine Cristiano Ronaldo. In 52 appearances for club and country, Ronaldo fired an astounding 62 goals including eight hat-tricks, and registered more shots on target than any other player across Europe’s top five leagues. As his country’s captain, Ronaldo scored four goals over the two legged-playoff with Sweden to single-handedly drag Portugal to the World Cup finals in Brazil this July.
The only blot on Ronaldo’s awe-inspiring year is the absence of a trophy. He was a worthy winner, and the public seem to agree. In a poll on the website of British newspaper The Independent, Ronaldo received 59% of the vote. In a similar poll on SkySports.com, the Portuguese earned over 80% of the vote.
In this case, whether Ribery has a legitimate gripe or not is actually irrelevant here. What is relevant is that regardless of whether he’s wrong or right, Ribery should not have said what he did. His sulky outburst portrays the Frenchman with a lack of dignity and an unattractive, sulking demeanour. His little “I should have won” rant is the equivalent of an actor at the Oscars appealing that he deserved the Best Leading Actor award because the film he appeared in won Best Picture.
What makes Ribery seem even more undeserving and petty is the graciousness of his fellow runner-up in the awards race, Lionel Messi. Messi came out immediately following the ceremony to say ‘I want to congratulate Cristiano because he was the winner and deservedly so. I think it was a good year for the three of us and that’s why we were there. I have nothing to complain about or make any excuses‘.
Ribery’s childish complaints following the 2013 Ballon D’Or results may scar the football star’s reputation
For Michel Platini, this is just the next in a long list of tiresome and illogical outbursts; the gibberish he spouted about financial fair play and the loan market, his branding of Chelsea and Manchester United as cheats, and his maddening stubbornness when it comes to goal-line technology.
Legacy
For Franck Ribery, however, this is a game changer. This is the kind of childish outburst that can alter a player’s public perception forever.
A person’s true character is revealed in adversity and difficulty, and in sport that means when you lose. While nobody likes to lose, especially in the competitive world of professional sports, people dislike a sore loser even more.
The shot of John Drummond led prone on the track in the World Track Championships in 2003, pleading “I did not move” to the officials, is one of the more infamous and pathetic images in sporting history. In football, people still remember Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and his refusal to shake Mark Hughes’s hand after his side’s League Cup defeat to Manchester City back in 2009.
Franck Ribery now takes his place alongside those embarrassing acts. His refusal to accept defeat at the hands of the greatest player in the world, and to respond to adversity in the gracious way that Lionel Messi was able to do, will leave a scar on the Frenchman’s legacy well after his playing days are over.
Frankly, now that I know what kind of a professional Franck Ribery is, I’m glad he didn’t win the Ballon d’Or.