Ballon d’Or 2022: Why Messi and Neymar were left out; Who wins the award?
France Football Magazine have posted the shortlisted footballers for the 2022 Ballon d’Or. And the most recent, and most-awarded participant of all-time, Lionel Messi, has been excluded from the 30-man shortlist.
Alongside the seven-time winner, Neymar has moreover been excluded from the guidelines of nominees for the award. Both wingers have had a tough season in France, which hasn’t been succesful to fetch them a nomination, in most cases due to the alternate in rules.
Ballon d’Or 2022: Messi and Neymar left out
Inevitably, Lionel Messi, with his 15 appearances in a row due to the fact 2006, his seven Ballon d’Or victories, his title holder status, weighs very closely when it comes to the closing choice,” France Football’s deputy editor-in-chief Emmanuel Bojan explained.
“The Argentinian used to be part of the discussions to combine the 30, but the new criteria for the Ballon d’Or have been detrimental to him: disappearance of the criterion of a player’s entire career, and new periodicity, modelled on a season of soccer and no longer over a calendar year, which does now not make it viable to combine the Copa America of July 11, 2021.
“And then, it should be admitted that his first season in Paris was very disappointing each in phrases of the visible influence and the statistics.”
The 30-man shortlist looks pretty academic at this point, given the overwhelming assist for Karim Benzema to win the award. The Real Madrid number 9 helped his group to a 14th Champions League title, and a 35th La Liga title, whilst finishing as the pinnacle scorer in both competitions.
