Has the Messi story lost its impact? The Ballon d'Or criteria in the dock

After the ceremony, José Félix Díaz, director of the newspaper "AS" and the only Spanish representative on the voting panel, revealed that his top three choices included Kane, Mbappé and Yamal, but in a different order from the final result.

Speaking on the programme "El Larguero" on "Cadena SER" radio, he said: "I was expecting Mbappé or Lamine Yamal, because Harry Kane is missing something". He added that 9 of the ten players he selected finished within the top ten in the final ranking. Díaz has yet to reveal the complete order of his vote, nor has he specified whether he placed Mbappé or Yamal first.

One journalist's view hardly proves Kane's win is undeserved. But it lays bare the heart of the dilemma: voters understand the concept of "the best" differently, and it cannot be reduced to a clear mathematical or statistical equation.

Here the real problem begins. If the award rewarded numbers alone, you could build a ranking on goals, assists and attacking contributions. If it rewarded titles alone, the trophy record would settle it.

The rules combine decisive individual performance, collective achievements and sporting conduct. Yet it is difficult, indeed impossible, to explain precisely how each journalist interpreted these criteria to settle their vote.

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One of the award's most controversial chapters dates back to 2010. Lionel Messi won the Ballon d'Or that year, despite Spain being crowned World Cup winners in South Africa. Andrés Iniesta, who scored the winning goal in the final against the Netherlands, came second, while Xavi Hernández came third.

Messi hardly lacked the credentials to win, standing as one of the most prominent stars in the world. But the result raised fresh questions about the fairness of the voting before the current criteria came in, and about how to weigh the individual brilliance of one player against a historic collective achievement.

The controversy did not stay confined to the fans. In April 2018, Pascal Ferré, then editor-in-chief of France Football magazine, published a tribute to Iniesta in which he apologised for never awarding him the Ballon d'Or throughout his career.

He wrote: "Forgive us, Andrés", describing his absence from the list of winners as one of the most painful of all, and speaking of what he called a "democratic flaw" that he hoped Iniesta would correct with an exceptional showing at the World Cup in Russia.

Ferré was talking about a player who finished the 2010 race as runner-up to Messi, then came third in 2012 behind Messi and Ronaldo, despite winning the European Championship with Spain and being named the best player of that Euro.

If France Football itself spoke of a "democratic flaw" in Iniesta's case, the public have every right to ask: were the subsequent reforms enough to prevent a repeat of the same feeling, or the same mistake, even if the names and circumstances differ?

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Kane's case this year lays bare just how hard this comparison can be. The English striker racked up a huge goal tally and drove Bayern to an exceptional domestic season. Mbappé and Yamal, meanwhile, entered the race with different but equally compelling arguments, built on their individual brilliance and their impact at Real Madrid and Barcelona, and with France and Spain.

Look a little further down the list and you find Messi, the man who won the Ballon d'Or after lifting the Qatar World Cup, dropping to fifth. He led Argentina to a World Cup final and delivered for Inter Miami, yet still slipped. That tells you the Ballon d'Or debate isn't about criteria alone. Media influence shapes the narratives, steering attention towards one story at the expense of another.

Here's the irony. Messi himself, and Ronaldo too, rode that momentum on previous occasions, while on others they faced questions over whether the coverage matched what their rivals had actually produced. None of this proves his ranking was unjust. It does, though, throw up a fundamental new question for this thorny file: is the contest decided by what a player produces on the pitch alone, or by his ability to become the story the media chooses to sell?

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Reforming the Ballon d'Or doesn't mean rewriting the rules every time there's a row over who deserves to win. No system can guarantee total consensus in a team sport. What it does need is greater clarity on how the criteria are applied, plus a serious debate about the limits of journalistic voting, the way nominees are chosen, and how to weigh individual brilliance against collective success.

The problem isn't that Kane or Messi came out on top. It's that every result reopens a question successive reforms have failed to settle. What makes one player the best in the world? Who has the authority to decide that, and by what measure? The voting panel keeps expanding geographically, footballing cultures differ wildly, and voters interpret the criteria in their own ways.

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