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| Lionel Messi beats Haaland at the 2023 Ballon d’Or | AFP/Franck Fife |
Lionel Messi's eighth Ballon d'Or award ceremony in Paris marked the end of his great career, as the award became a long service medal rather than a testament to current achievement. Messi may be considered the finest footballer ever, and his performance in the Qatar World Cup was magnificent, scoring seven times to win Argentina the trophy. However, the organisers of the Ballon d'Or undermined the integrity of the award by altering its parameters to take into last year's World Cup and the football season, rather than the calendar year. This makes it seem like the whole thing was fixed to make Messi a contender.
If the usual criteria were properly applied, Messi would be nowhere near the award. Since lifting the World Cup, he has been on a protracted retirement tour, adding lustre to David Beckham's exercise in celebrity known as Inter Miami. He has scored 11 goals and delivered eight assists in just 11 games in Miami's famous pink shirt, but only one of them came in Major League Soccer fixtures. In 2023, Erling Haaland has 38 goals, a greater return than anyone else in Europe's top leagues, and finished the 2022-23 campaign with 52 goals from 52 appearances. At the rate he is scoring, a half-century this year is easily within his reach by New Year's Eve.
Haaland did not feature in the World Cup or next summer's Euros, as he plays for an international side that doesn't qualify for the big tournaments. His only connection with last winter's desert jamboree was to be seen with his Norway colleagues wearing T-shirts condemning the fact the tournament was being played in Qatar at all.
The decision to give the trophy to Messi rather than the man who anyone with an operating pair of eyes can see deserved to be lauded is more significant than the man who anyone with an operating pair of eyes can see deserved to be lauded: Haaland plays in England. Since George Best won the Ballon d'Or in 1968, only two Ballon d'Or winners have been based in this country: Michael Owen in 2001, after guiding Liverpool to a treble of FA Cup, League Cup, and Uefa Cup, and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008.
This year may have marked Haaland's best chance of landing the big one, as he won this year's Young Player title and Jude Bellingham has taken the precaution of plying his trade in the place where winners come from.
