On October 28, the Ballon d’Or ceremony took place which, in addition to crowning the best player of the 2023/2024 season, also rewarded the best young person under 21. And without any surprise, it was Lamine Yamal (17 years old), winner of Euro 2024 with Spain and great revelation for FC Barcelona, who won the Kopa Trophy.
Unlike the Ballon d’Or, the jury voting to elect the best U21 is not made up of journalists from the top 100 countries in the FIFA Ranking, but by former winners of the Ballon d’Or. This Saturday, November 9, the details of the votes were also made public by the newspaper The Teamwhich specifies that seven of them did not vote: Denis Law, Kevin Keegan, Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, George Weah, Zinédine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Although the reasons for the abstentions have not been revealed, we can assume that the advanced age of Denis Law (84 years old), or even of Kevin Keegan (73 years old), constituted an obstacle. For Michel Platini, it was certainly his legal troubles with FIFA that prevented him from participating. As for Cristiano Ronaldo, we remember that the Portuguese had publicly expressed that he no longer really carried the Ballon d’Or (as well as The Best award) in his heart. It would therefore not be surprising if he simply declined FIFA’s invitation to vote.
Photo by Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images
