Real Madrid boycott event
\nParis
\nManchester City and Spain midfielder Rodri was awarded the men\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or on Monday after winning a fourth consecutive Premier League title and Euro 2024.
\nThe decision to award the prize for the world\u2019s best player to the midfielder came as a surprise, with Real Madrid\u2019s La Liga and Champions League double winner Vinicius Jr widely seen as the favourite.
\nHours before the ceremony in Paris, the Spanish club announced its delegation would not attend the ceremony at Chatelet Theatre because of what it perceived as a snub of Vinicius.
\nThe Spanish and European champions said if Vinicius was not the winner, then the award should go to his teammate Dani Carvajal.
\nLike the Brazilian, Carvajal scored in the 2-0 victory against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final at Wembley.
\n\u201cIf the award criteria doesn\u2019t give it to Vinicius as the winner, then those same criteria should point to Carvajal as the winner,\u201d Real Madrid told AFP.
\n\u201cAs this was not the case, it is clear that Ballon d\u2019Or-UEFA does not respect Real Madrid. And Real Madrid does not go where it is not respected.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, Rodri, 28, played a key role as Man City held off Arsenal to win the Premier League title last season and was named player of the tournament at Euro 2024 as unfancied Spain emerged triumphant in Germany.
\nRodri was diplomatic when addressing the question of Real\u2019s no-show in his post-award press conference.
\n\u201cThey have their decision, they didn\u2019t want to be here for their reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cI just focus on my club and my teammates.\u201d
\nDespite the French organisers insisting that the identity of the winner was a closely-guarded secret this year, the news appeared to have leaked ahead of the festivities.
\nAdditionally, Barcelona and Spain star Aitana Bonmati earlier won her second successive women\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or, after leading her club to a historic continental quadruple of titles and claiming the Nations League with her country.
\nLast year, the most prestigious award in the football world went to Argentina\u2019s Lionel Messi for the eighth time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Real Madrid boycott event Paris Manchester City and Spain midfielder Rodri was awarded the men\u2019s Ballon d\u2019Or on Monday after winning a fourth consecutive Premier League title and Euro 2024. The decision to award the prize for the world\u2019s best player to the midfielder came as a surprise, with Real Madrid\u2019s La Liga and Champions …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72267,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72250\/revisions\/72267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}