Monday was an exciting day for football fans around the world as France Football, reclaiming their coveted award, announced the 30 nominees for the 2016 Ballon d’Or.
As with every list of players, some were unfortunately left out (notably Mesut Özil), meaning some groups of fans were left annoyed, while other inclusions surprised a few.
Luckily, in stark contrast to FIFA’s lack of transparency regarding the previous six editions of the award, France Football explain a lot of their decisions in their Tuesday edition, including why they put Paul Pogba among the 30.
The French magazine explain they needed ‘many meetings, three hours of discussion, animated debates and, to finish, a hand vote’ to come to some sort of agreement, with his performance against Holland for France tipping the balance in his favour.
Considering 2016 wasn’t his best year, France Football also state ‘his potential, his physical ability, his charisma, and the game at the Amsterdam ArenA’ as reasons for his presence in the list.
Finally, they admit that ‘if we’d needed to find thirty players better than him, we might still be looking’.
Arsenal fans might have something to say about that…
