It’s a no longer a secret that Lionel Messi won his 8th Ballon d’Or steering him clear of his closest competitor, Cristiano Ronaldo by 3 more as the Portuguese has been stuck at 5 since 2017.
However, how did different countries vote for the different nominees in this prestigious award? It should be noted that only internationally accredited sports journalists from the top 100 FIFA ranked countries are the ones allowed to vote.
In East Africa, Uganda was the only country which managed to vote as it’s ranked 89th. And the vote from there went to Lionel Messi. Argentina voted for Messi while Norway voted for Halaand as expected.
In France surprisingly, they did not vote for Kylian Mbappe but rather Erling Halaand. Portugal voted for nobody in the top 5 but rather Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva.
Germany, England, USA Brazil and South Africa all voted for Messi. By the end of the process, the 36 year old had 462 points while Halaand had 357 points. There was a gap of 105 points.
Mbappe came in third with 270 points while Kevin De Bruyne, and Rodri completed the top 5. Meanwhile the Ronaldo fanboys are still crying about how Messi didn’t deserve to win.
Shockingly is that the Portuguese and Al Nasr player wasn’t voted. His fan base has been gunning for other players since 2018 as the former Real Madrid and Manchester United player hasn’t laid hands on the award since 2017.
