Deco calls Ballon d'Or snub a "huge scandal" as London prepares to host
Barcelona official Deco has called it a "huge scandal" that Raphinha and Pedri were left off the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d'Or, football's award for the world's best male player. The ceremony is on 26 October in London, the first time the event has been held in the British capital.
The shortlist is drawn up by the French magazines France Football and L'Equipe. Paris St-Germain has 10 players on it, which is a record for one club. Harry Kane, Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi were also named when the list was announced in September, according to Reuters.
The winner is picked by voting. Each of the top 100 nations in the FIFA world rankings, the global governing body's table of national teams, sends one journalist to vote. National team captains and managers once had a say too, but that arrangement ran for a short time and ended in 2015.
Deco, who is a senior figure at Barcelona, went further than the snub. He backed Lamine Yamal as the overwhelming favourite to win. Yamal, for his part, said he will not "beg for anything" when it comes to the award. Kylian Mbappe is also among the names in the running, as Al Jazeera reported this week.
Not everyone is hungry for the debate. Paris St-Germain manager Luis Enrique said he is "bored of the Ballon d'Or", a line that will have made some fans smile given how many of his players are on the list.
Elsewhere, the campaigning is more heartfelt. In Georgia, a "Kvara d'Or" campaign has celebrated Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's place on the shortlist. Supporters have rallied behind their player in the same way fans rally behind a team, with banners and slogans.
Max Eberl, Bayern Munich's sporting board member, has spoken up for two of his own players, Harry Kane and Michael Olise. Bayern's push is a reminder that clubs often treat the award as a way of showing off their stars, not just a personal honour.
The last winner was Ousmane Dembele, who received the trophy at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris last September. Jean-Pierre Papin, a Frenchman, was the last player to win it in 1991, a long time before most of the current shortlist were born.
For casual fans, the simple version is this: a panel of journalists picks the best player of the year, and the debate starts the moment the list comes out. This year's debate has a clear focus. Who gets left off, who makes a fuss about it, and who ends up in London holding the golden ball.
