The prestigious Golden Ball 2024, which crowned the Spanish Rodri as the best footballer on the planet, unleashed an unexpected wave of verbal violence against one of the voters. The Venezuelan journalist Francisco Blavia recently revealed to have been the target of serious death threats for exercising his right to vote, leaning for the Manchester City midfielder instead of the favorite of many, the Brazilian Vinicius junior.
“I am the Venezuelan journalist who votes to the Golden Ball, and when I vote for Rodri, instead of Vinícius, you will imagine,” Blavia confessed, suggesting the magnitude of the reaction generated by his choice. “I tell you that death threats, and I’m not exaggerating, from Brazil they wrote to me and called me.”
Blavia’s decision was opposed to the opinion of a broad sector of the fans and other professionals of sports journalism, who considered that the dazzling season of the Real Madrid attacker deserved the highest individual recognition. This discrepancy even echoed during the awards gala, where various football figures publicly expressed their doubts about the “credibility” of the voting process.
The controversy intensified even more with the absence of Júnior Vinícius and his nominees of Real Madrid at the ceremony, feeding the speculations that they already knew the final result.
It should be remembered that the 2024 edition of the Golden Ball marked a milestone to be the first granted in collaboration between France Football and UEFA magazine. A hundred journalists from all over the world were responsible for casting their votes, based for the third time on the trajectory of the current season, instead of the traditional calendar year.
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