The Ballon d'Or is one of the most prestigious individual football awards, with the winner determined by the votes of selected journalists. Spanish publication As spoke with journalists who did not vote for Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema, revealing the reasons behind their decisions.
Swiss journalist Christophe Cerf, who works for radio station RFJ and has participated in the Ballon d'Or voting for over a decade, has been a journalist for more than 30 years. In 2023, he was one of only five journalists, out of a total of 92, who did not award Lionel Messi any points, even though Messi won the award that year after leading the national team to the 2022 World Cup title in Qatar. Cerf stated that he sometimes felt ashamed and offended by campaigns attempting to influence the result, and judged Messi's provocations towards the Dutch to be incompatible with the values he associates with the Ballon d'Or. He placed Messi first in 2015, but not in 2019, 2021 or 2023, and also disliked the way Messi left Barcelona in 2021.
Portuguese journalist Joaquim Sita, an employee of television channel SIC, was among those who did not place Messi first in his last five winning selections. Sita stated that he always looked exclusively at individual achievements, not taking team successes into account, and that there had been previous editions in which he voted for the Argentine ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo won the Ballon d'Or in 2016 with a record 429-point lead over Messi, after winning the Champions League with Real Madrid and the European Championship with Portugal that year.
Víctor Duaso, who has represented Andorra in the voting for 10 years and is now the head of the sports desk at newspaper Bondía, was among the few who placed Messi ahead of Ronaldo in 2016. Duaso stated that Leo was his favourite that year.
Karim Benzema won the Ballon d'Or in 2022 with the second-largest point difference in history, and only four journalists did not place him first. Representatives from Egypt and the Netherlands voted for Mohamed Salah, while the representative from Senegal gave the preference to Sadio Mané. Idrissa Sané rejected claims that he voted driven by emotions, stating that France Football told him objectivity was most important, and that he placed Benzema second because he needs to be democratic, while Mané was the decisive player at the Africa Cup of Nations and at Liverpool. The Slovenian representative believed that Kevin De Bruyne deserved the award more than Benzema that season.
