It has been a turbulent few hours in the Spanish capital in view of the Ballon d’Or ceremony later tonight.
The delegation from Madrid was all set to board the flight to Paris with Vinicius Jr the favourite to land the prestigious award and Carlo Ancelotti a favourite to take home the best coach award.
A sudden shockwave, however, was sent through Spain when reports of Rodri’s surprise win came out, claiming that Real Madrid’s star winger had been beaten in the nth minute.
As the claims grew, the Merengues grew confident that the news was indeed true and thus cancelled all plans to make it to the Theatre du Chatelet.
Ballon d’Or sources scream in defence
Now, according to EFE via AS, sources from the Ballon d’Or organisers and France Football have come out to state that no news of the winner has been leaked and that no one knows the final result.
They further called up Real Madrid’s decision to cancel the trip to Paris ‘incomprehensible’ and insisted that even the winner himself is unaware of the result, let alone sources in the media.
With no club, player or anyone being informed of the result, they are flabbergasted by the news going around in the media and more so by Real Madrid’s stance.
While indeed the news is not official, there have been enough reports to suggest that the development is true for the player and the club would not have cancelled their plans to attend the event unless it was confirmed by a reliable source.
As a show of support, the entire Real Madrid delegation has called off their trip despite being on track to win two other awards.
In fact, Los Blancos are enraged over the partiality in the use of criteria for Dani Carvajal is a strong contender to win if international accomplishments are indeed the parameter used to place Rodri above Vinicius.