Malaysia bids farewell to Ballon d’Or, merci for the 11-year ride

IT WAS in September 2010 that I received an e-mail from Thierry Marchand, the head of international football at authoritative weekly magazine France Football, inviting me to be a member of a newly-assembled international jury for football’s most prestigious award, Ballon d’Or, which means the Golden Ball in French.

Pleasantly surprised by the invite, naturally I said ‘oui’.

A month later, an e-mail from Denis Chaumier, chief editor of France Football, confirmed the appointment to represent the Malaysian media in the international jury list.

In the re-branding exercise, France Football and FIFA inked a deal to make the Ballon d’Or the one and only individual award to reward the best player of the world.

The responsibility came with a burden.

A burden that comes with pleasure, though, to be a part of an exercise initiated by fullback-turned-technical director-turned journalist Gabriel Hanot, as editor of L’Equipe, who asked his colleagues from all over Europe to pick the best of the lot at the inaugural award in 1956.

On the other hand, the FIFA Player of the Year award was introduced in 1991 by the world governing body in a voting system that featured coaches and captains.

With the merger of two gongs into one coveted prize that was known as FIFA Ballon d’Or from 2010 to 2015, the composition of the jury was changed.

The votes from coaches, captains and the media each accounted for 33% of the final vote.

We were asked to select three players from the attached list of 23 players and place them in descending order so that the first player received five points, the second three points and the third one point.

So in my maiden attempt at voting, I picked Dutch maestro, Wesley Sneijder, with Xavi second, followed by Uruguay’s Diego Forlan at third place.

Over the course of the 2009-2010 season, Sneijder was the cornerstone behind Inter Milan’s march to the treble of UEFA Champions’ League, the Scudetto and Italian Cup, an unprecedented feat in Italian football. He came agonisingly close to the World Cup title, losing to Spain but not before netting five goals en route to the final.

Lionel Messi, the eventual winner, was not in my top three because he did not deliver in the tournaments that mattered most. Neither was Andres Iniesta in my shortlist simply because he was injured for the early part of the season.

Unlike Messi, Forlan played for a less heralded team, both at club and country levels.

Sneijder’s success was appreciated by my fellow journalists. He earned 293 points from that section of the votes, enough to put him top of the pile ahead of Iniesta (226), Xavi (229) and Messi (175).

On media votes alone, Sneijder would have walked away with the ball.

The national coach at that time, Datuk K. Rajagobal, picked Iniesta, Xavi and Mesut Ozil, while skipper Norhafiz Zamani Misbah voted for Xavi, Sneijder and Carles Puyol.

Being the sole media representative from Malaysia came with a price. My votes came under great scrutiny every year from fans who believed their favourite footballer deserved the podium.

There were direct messages across the continent in various social media accounts questioning my decision, accusing me of bias and prejudice once the ballots were made public.

In March, I received an e-mail from France Football editor-in-chief, Pascal Ferre, saying the ballot has now been restricted to journalists from the first 100 countries in the FIFA rankings for the men’s award and the first 50 for the women’s category.

A player whom I voted at No. 3 in 2021, Karim Benzema, which was again disputed by fans of Liverpool, deservedly took home the golden ball this time around.

Since our beloved Harimau Malaya have been languishing in the 140s for many years now, I no longer belong to the province of the privileged.

Merci for the ride, France Football.

The writer remains a panelist in the Asian Footballer of the Year award.