How Taylor Swift fans are helping Jude Bellingham win the Golden Boy award over Alex Balde

While La Liga and Champions League titles will always be among the most coveted trophies in Europe, individual awards are also a measure of a player's career achievements.

The Ballon d'Or is the most well-known of the individual awards handed out to players, but the European Golden Boy is another highly sought-after trophy among players across UEFA.

Awarded to the best young player in Europe, the Golden Boy award is given to an individual whose promise is such that the sky is the limit. The likes of Lionel Messi and Erling Haaland have won the award in past years, among other world-class players.

The online voting portion of this year's award, however, appears to have been hijacked by a random corner of the internet – and their reason for doing so is dubious at best. The Sporting News breaks down why the popular award has been taken over by music fans looking to exact their own form of justice.

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Back in May, popular Twitter (X) account Barca Universal posted a quote supposedly from Alex Balde, which said: "Do I like Taylor Swift? No, I don't like her music."

For the simple crime of maybe having an opinion, it appears the musician's huge fanbase wants revenge.

In protest, a portion of Taylor Swift fans on social media have organized a campaign to flock to the Golden Boy Web voting and together vote instead for Jude Bellingham in massive numbers.

It's likely that the angry fans chose Bellingham because he plays for Real Madrid – which is Barcelona's chief rival – but in truth, the England international would likely have won the award anyway, purely for his incredible achievements on the field over the past year.

Yet the numbers are wildly inflated