The Ballon d'Or changes in the calendar

The next edition of the Ballon d'Or will modify the evaluation period, which will be per season and not per calendar year, as until now, and will reduce the number of journalists who vote, announced France Football, the magazine that has awarded the award for 70 years. to the best soccer player.

The modifications come after the organizer of the trophy received criticism for awarding the 2021 Ballon d'Or to Leo Messi, the seventh in his career, ahead of Robert Lewandowski.

"The Ballon d'Or proposes a little cure for youth and touch-ups so that it is perfectly connected with the demands, with the particularities and the evolution of contemporary football," said France Football.

The change in the evaluation period, by season (August-July) and not by calendar year, will lead, for example, to the Qatar World Cup in December 2022 not being included in the prize accounts for this year.

The current accounting period will be the 2021-22 academic year and will end with the Women's European Championship, between July 6 and 31 next summer.

In this way, the winner is prevented from being awarded for two half seasons.

Now it will be for a complete.

The second big change comes when it comes to varying the criteria for voting for a player.

The magazine wants the criteria of "individual and decisive performance" to weigh more than the collective results, which will become secondary.

Another criterion that gave points, that of the player's history, is eliminated to make way for players with less experience.

The third modification limits the number of journalists who can vote.

The voting journalists, one from each country, will be reduced from the current 170 to 100, and will represent the highest ranked nations in the FIFA rankings.

In the women's Ballon d'Or, in addition, only 50 specialized journalists will be able to vote.

The fourth relevant section is that the nomination criteria will also be modified.

The list will not only be established by journalists from France Football and L'Équipe;

Ivory Coast Didier Drogba, Ballon d'Or ambassador, and the journalist whose vote was the most insightful will also take part.

For the next men's award, it will be the Vietnamese Truong Anh Ngoc (from The Thao & Van Hoa), who traced the top five finishers of the last Ballon d'Or in his vote. For the women's, it will be the Czech Karolina Hlavackova (Ruik).

The important modification established in the next edition of the Ballon d'Or will make it very difficult for Messi to win it again in this edition.

PSG have been eliminated in the knockout stages of the Champions League against Madrid, which reduces their aspirations to obtain the award.

PSG can win Ligue 1, although obtaining this trophy would not boost Messi in the same way as having won the World Cup in Qatar, which is already for the next edition of the tournament.

The Ballon d'Or is the most prestigious award in world football.

It was created in 1956 by Gabriel Hanot, then director of France Football magazine.

In its first stage, the award was aimed only at players of European nationality who played in Europe itself.

As of 1995, non-European footballers who played in any European league were also eligible.

In 2007 all restrictions disappeared and any player from anywhere in the world can win the prize.

Englishman Stanley Matthews was the first player in history to receive the award and Ronaldo Nazário was the first footballer not born in Europe to win it, in 1997. Messi and Alexia Putellas were the last winners.

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