Football’s prestigious award The Ballon d’Or cancelled this year

The prestigious Ballon d’Or will not be awarded this year France Football has announced.

This is the first time the award instituted by France Football since 1956 identifying the best player in the game has been cancelled.

Announcing the decision the organisers of the award, Group L ‘Equipe announced in a statement on Monday that the conditions for the prize has not been met this year.

“There will be no edition in 2020, because it turns out, after thoughtful consideration, that all the conditions are not met. We believe that such a singular year-and should not- be treated as an ordinary one”, Editor-in-Chief of France Football Pascal Ferre said in the statement.

The organisers also said that the cancellation was due to “lack of sufficient fair conditions”

Since the award is cancelled this year, 2019 winner Messi will retain his title for another 12 months.

‘Dream Team’ by year-end

Lionel Messi and Christiano Ronaldo have dominated the Ballon d’Or for more than a decade with the former winning it six times and the later five.

The organisers have said deciding a winner based on just two months instead of the usual 11 in a year would be unfair as the games played are ‘far too little to gauge and judge the winner’.

However France Football has decided to announce a ‘Dream Team’ at the end of the year. Eleven players will be chosen by the Ballon d’Or jury.

The award is presided over by France Football, having been a FIFA award from 2010-2015. But, the two institutions then split and FIFA created its own awards.

In 2018, the Ballon d’Or Feminin was added to its award list, alongside  the best young player and the best goalkeeper.

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