Following a change in the rules, the 2022 Ballon d’Or will be received by the best player during a football season from July to June and not the one who stands out in a calendar year, which could benefit Karim Benzema.
The Ballon d’Or will be handed to the winner in October and this year’s Champions League is expected to decide the player who will win the accolade, with Robert Lewandowski among the potential contenders for the award.
According to L’Equipe, this makes Benzema the main favourite to win the 2022 Ballon d’Or, despite not being the only candidate.
As the French publication has indicated, Benzema is the frontrunner in the race for the prize due to his hat-tricks against Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, as well as his 24 LaLiga Santander goals, his UEFA Nations League success with France in October and his five goals with the French national team since September.
Jean-Pierre Papin, who won the Ballon d’Or back in 1991, is confident that Benzema will become the fourth French to ever win the prize.
L’Equipe, meanwhile, has praised Benzema‘s “constant progress, his permanence in the elite, the improvement of his skillset, his way of making others better and his ease in simplicity.”
Could Sadio Mane win the Ballon d’Or?
The French publication indicated that Liverpool forward Sadio Mane, who won the Africa Cup of Nations this winter with Senegal just before being decisive in the World Cup playoffs against Egypt, could be handed the award if his team win the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League.
However, Africa has lost 29 votes, as France Football announced earlier this year that representatives of the top 100 countries in the FIFA rankings will be able to vote from this year’s edition and on.
The new Ballon d’Or rules also give more prominence to individual achievements, which means that Kylian Mbappe could be among the candidates, despite PSG‘s failure in the Champions League.
Marca
