Lionel Messi's eighth Ballon d'Or is no 'scandal' - but is it his last? Inter Miami move means the GOAT is likely done winning Golden Balls
The award no longer means as much to the World Cup winner, but it was fully deserved and means he has another record that will never be broken
Toni Kroos has long lamented the importance attached to the Ballon d'Or, Philipp Lahm says it's now nothing more than a popularity contest in which goalscorers are the only possible victors, while Gary Lineker says the constant debate surrounding an individual prize in a team sport has «just got silly». In a damning sign of the times, though, the award retains a remarkable ability to rile people up.
Even before Lionel Messi collected an eighth Ballon d'Or in Paris on Monday, West Ham striker Michail Antonio claimed that it would be a «scandal» if the prize did not go to Erling Haaland — with the West Ham striker inexplicably overlooking the fact that the Norwegian is not even Manchester City's best player, let alone the world's.
Callum Wilson agreed with his fellow Premier League forward, though, and rather amusingly argued that if you take international football out of the equation, the Norwegian was the only possible winner. Because, you know, the biggest tournament in sport has never been the deciding factor in a Ballon d'Or vote...
Indeed, former Real Madrid winger Eden Hazard called Messi's triumph «logical» in light of what happened in Qatar last December, with the Belgian pointing out that it would make no sense to reward anyone other than «the best player in history in the year that he won the World Cup».
Hazard acknowledged it could have been a different story had Kylian Mbappe's France prevailed on penalties in Lusail rather than Argentina, and that is a sentiment shared by Les Bleus legend Thierry Henry, but when asked on CBS Sports who should win this year's Ballon d'Or,
Read on goal.com
