The importance of FIFA’s Ballon d’Or award is so noble that no one wants to miss it, especially if he has shown one of his career best in the season. This season too, there are several contenders for the same including Barcelona’s Messi and Real Madrid’s Ronaldo who, like always, is fighting for the biggest crown. But, there is a big change this time after German’s dominance in the world cup and that is many experts are calling for a German to win this year Ballon d’Or and these whizzes include some high profile names as well including FIFA president Blatter and UEFA president Michel Platini who recently said a German should win this FIFA honor not Ronaldo or anyone else. If we look at the final list of shortlisted players for the crown, there are as many as five German players in the list including Manuel Neuer, Thomas Muller, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kroos, and Mario Gotze and according to UEFA boss he sees pretty realistic chances for any one of them to take the honor and prove their June performance in Brazil was not a fluke.
Platini statement favoring German players is expectedly not being welcomed by Real fans including bosses at the helm who have long been preferring star Portuguese to win his third FIFA title. Condemning Frenchman’s stand for Germans, Real issued a statement and said, “In view of the declarations made by the president of UEFA, Michel Platini, concerning the winner of the Ballon d’Or, Real Madrid C. F. would like to outline:
“Firstly, its surprise at the repeated declarations regarding his personal preferences over the choice of the winner of the Ballon d’Or, particularly given that he is the head of European football’s principal body, where our understanding is that the strictest impartiality should prevail.
“Secondly, the Ballon d’Or is an individual rather than collective prize which is awarded annually to the best player in the world, and we believe that, in order to maintain its prestige, those who participate in the vote should take into account exclusively the individual professional achievements of the players. Finally, we believe that Cristiano Ronaldo has without doubt had his best ever professional year individually, and has claimed the Champions League, the Golden Shoe and the record for the highest goal scorer in an edition of the Champions League, as well as the Copa del Rey and the top scorer award in La Liga.”