The official account of the Ballon d'Or sparked considerable controversy after posting a picture of Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo in Al-Nassr's jersey, asking, "Is it possible to win the Ballon d'Or without playing for a European club?"
Every year, as the major football awards season approaches, the question echoes: "Is the dream of winning the Ballon d'Or limited exclusively to those who wear the shirts of European clubs?"
As the World Cup nears its climax, the debate over the Ballon d'Or winner intensifies, but the competition for the highest individual award in the world of football did not begin in June, but rather in August 2025, with the start of the club season.
However, it seems that the Ballon d'Or award has been narrowed down to the two stars, the veteran Argentine Lionel Messi (39 years old) and the young Spaniard Lamine Jamal (19 years old), after they contributed to the "Tango" and "Matador" reaching the 2026 World Cup final.
The official Ballon d'Or website published a picture of veteran star Cristiano Ronaldo in the jersey of Saudi club Al-Nassr, and a report on the history of the award, saying: "The competition for the Ballon d'Or did not begin with the start of the World Cup, but its first spark ignites with the beginning of each season in August, as the prestigious award was founded in 1956 by the French magazine 'France Football', and at its beginning it was exclusively dedicated to the best European player who plays football within the clubs of the European continent."
She added: "This tradition continued for four full decades, until a radical shift occurred in 1995, when the award opened its doors to all players of different nationalities, but with an implicit condition of continuing to play within European leagues."
She continued: "This point remained unresolved until 2007, when the organizing committee dropped the last restrictions, announcing that the award belonged to the best player in the world regardless of where he was located, thus transforming the award from a local European one to a truly global one."
Although the doors have been opened in theory, the hard numbers confirm that the golden rule has remained captive to European clubs.
In a detailed statistic that included the last 18 editions of the award, a fact stands out that cannot be ignored, which is the players’ numbers. In 2007, the Brazilian Kaka was crowned, followed by the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo in 2008, then the Argentinian Lionel Messi in 2009, and all of them were leading their clubs to achieve the Champions League, the tournament that is considered the most important standard for evaluating stars.
The rule continued without any clear exceptions, as Croatian Luka Modric, Frenchman Karim Benzema, Spaniard Rodri, and Frenchman Ousmane Dembele were all crowned, all wearing the shirts of European giants at the moment their names were announced as the best player in the world.
But history witnessed a pivotal moment that broke this iron rule, and its hero was the Argentine legend Lionel Messi.
At the 67th Ballon d'Or ceremony, held on October 30, 2023, Messi made history, not only by winning his eighth title, but also by being the first player in the history of the award (since the cancellation of the registration) to win the Ballon d'Or while representing a non-European club, as he had just moved to the American team Inter Miami.
However, this debatable case requires very precise analysis, since the current calculation system is based on evaluating the player’s performance during the extended football period (from August to July) and not the calendar year.
According to this system, the judging panel based its evaluation of Messi for the year 2023 on his numbers and achievements with his former team, Paris Saint-Germain, and not on his performance in the American league, which gives this exception a special technical character.
In the women's Ballon d'Or competition, the scene was largely similar, but it was not without a notable precedent. Since the award's inception, European clubs had dominated the scene, until 2019, which etched a new name in the annals of history.
That year, American Megan Rapinoe, a player for Seattle Reign FC, won the award, becoming the first player in the history of the competition (women's version) to win the Ballon d'Or without being affiliated with a European team, confirming that the exception is not exclusive to the men's category.
