The Ballon d’Or is supposed to be football’s biggest individual awards ceremony—a glamorous evening celebrating the best players on the planet, recognizing extraordinary achievements, and bringing together the biggest names in the sport.
Instead, it somehow feels like watching a live broadcast of a badly organized talent show.
Where do you even begin?
Nominees were late arriving to the London Palladium due to traffic, there were fights and mayhem outside the venue, a DAZN security guard looked ready
to throw hands with an aloof, wandering photographer, and there were enough unneeded highlight packages and awkward moments to make everyone watching question their own life decisions.
There was rambling, forced small talk, painfully awkward attempts at humor, and conversations that seemed to exist solely because someone was contractually obligated to fill another 90 seconds of airtime.
And the actual awards? An absolute endurance test. Every announcement seemed to take an eternity, every category came with another unnecessary detour, and the entire process dragged on like a goalless match in the 120th minute.
These are the biggest stars in world football. Surely they deserve something better than this?
At this rate, surviving the ceremony deserves its own Ballon d’Or category.
However, there was a silver lining to the night—Bayern Munich star Harry Kane took home the Best Men’s Striker Award and the big one: the Ballon d’Or.
After the debacle that was the ceremony, Kane’s massive victory made it all worth it.
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