FIFA Ballon d'Or 2020 30-man shortlist (in no particular order):
First batch: Lionel Messi, Mané, Raheem Sterling, Bruno Fernandes...
Second batch: Cristiano Ronaldo, Ousmane Dembélé...
Third batch: Robert Lewandowski, De Bruyne, Kylian Mbappé...
Fourth batch: Tang Ye, Virgil van Dijk, Oblak...
Fifth batch: Rodri, de Jong...
FIFA planned to have France Football retroactively award the 2020 Ballon d'Or, and it was an official announcement. This news could only be described as absolutely, utterly shocking.
Because that meant there could very well be two Ballon d'Or winners this year!
A quick glance at the 30-man shortlist revealed the same familiar names.
In truth, if this was the 2020 Ballon d'Or selection, the exact players on the shortlist did not really matter.
Looking across the twelve months of last year, Tang Ye's performances had simply been unstoppable!
Sky Sports commentator Jason: FIFA made the right choice. Matches in 2020 were not actually affected too severely by the pandemic, because many games were merely postponed rather than fully cancelled. TY would receive the second Ballon d'Or of his career.
The Times editor-in-chief: FIFA's decision to retroactively award the Ballon d'Or is worth considering.
"Under normal circumstances, the Ballon d'Or should not have been restarted after its cancellation was confirmed, because that would clearly damage FIFA's credibility. Since FIFA ultimately chose to retroactively award the 2020 Ballon d'Or, we have reason to question Infantino's motives."
"FIFA wants to establish TY as the new standard and completely bring the Messi-Ronaldo era to an end before the Qatar World Cup."
The editor-in-chief of The Times quickly became famous because of that post.
Setting everything else aside, his analysis displayed exceptionally strong logic.
For FIFA to retroactively award last year's Ballon d'Or was a thankless task.
Since they were willing to do it, there had to be