Vinicius Junior Doesn't Win Ballon D'Or, Says There's Football Politics

Vinicius Junior protested against this year's Ballon d'Or (Instagram/@vinijr).

JAKARTA - Vinicius Junior and his colleagues at Real Madrid who were nominated for the award, decided not to come to the 2024 Ballon d'Or awarding night on October 29, 2024 in Paris.

Vinicius and his teammates chose to be absent because they were convinced beforehand that Manchester City midfielder Rodri would receive the award.

Sure enough, the Spanish national team midfielder won the Ballon d'Or this year.

Vinicius is actually one of the strong candidates to win the 2024 best player award.

He has brought Real Madrid to La Liga and Champions League titles last season.

Several Los Blancos players were also nominated, such as Jude Bellingham, Dani Carvajal, Kylian Mbappe, Antonio Rudiger, Federico Valverde, and Andriy Lunin who were nominated as the best goalkeepers.

Then, there was young Arda Guler who was nominated for the Kopa Trophy and Carlo Ancelotti who was nominated as the best coach.

In the end, Real Madrid won the award as the best team of players this year at the ceremony.

Carlo Ancelotti also received the best coaching award this year even though there was no representative from him to accept it.

Meanwhile, Vinicius satirized on his personal X account after not being elected to win the Ballon d'Or title.

"I will do it 10 times if needed. They are not ready," Vinicius wrote on his personal X account.

Vinicius also received defense from his Real Madrid team-mate, Eduardo Camavinga. He called the vote for the Ballon d'Or winner unfair and seemed to have football politics.

"Politic football. My brother, you are the best player in the world and no award can say otherwise. It's a shame you are my brother," wrote the French international on X along with a photo of himself and Vinicius celebrating together.

One of the club's sources to ESPN also considered the Ballon d'Or unfair and embarrassing because Vinicius did not win the award.

Not attending the ceremony was a form of protest in the form of fire.

Vinicius scored 15 goals in La Liga last season, as well as six goals in the Champions League, including in Madrid's semi-final win over Bayern Munich and the final against Borussia Dortmund.

The feeling at Real Madrid in recent weeks is that the attacker will most likely claim the award, one of which is from Carlo Ancelotti.

"I think he will win it," Ancelotti said last week.

If they win, Vinicius will be the first Brazilian to win the men's Ballon d'Or since Kaka in 2007.

The 2023 Ballon d'Or was won by Lionel Messi and became the eighth. Meanwhile, in 2022, Karim Benzema from Real Madrid won the award.

Vinicius scored three goals in the second half as Real Madrid won 5-2 in the Champions League against Dortmund last week, before appearing in a disappointing 0-4 defeat against Barcelona at El Clasico on Sunday, October 27, 2024.

In the summer, he scored twice for Brazil at the 2024 Copa America. Both goals were scored in a 4-1 win over Paraguay.

Overall, he struggled in the tournament as Brazil was knocked out by Uruguay in the quarter-finals.