Ballon d'Or was rocked by scandal after 'fake journalist who doesn't exist' allowed to vote for award

The Ballon d’Or ceremony crowns the ‘best player’ in world football but the award hasn’t been given out without controversy.

The best footballers in the world will gather on Monday, October 28 for the annual awards presented by France Football since 1956.

The Ballon d’Or will enter a new era with neither Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi not nominated for the first time since 2003.

Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr is the frontrunner to win the crown after netting 24 goals and providing 11 assists in all competitions as Madrid cruised to the La Liga title and a 15th Champions League trophy.

He faces competition from teammate Jude Bellingham and Manchester City star Rodri who helped Spain win EURO 2024 and secured record-breaking fourth consecutive Premier League title with his club.

There has been a huge change to this year’s award with an interview no longer taking place with the winner BEFORE the awards meaning players will only discover whether they have won the minute the envelope is opened.

The awards are voted for by a jury of journalists from each of the top 100 countries in the FIFA men’s world rankings, ten players are selected in order of merit.

Players are scored spending on their position in the list, the player with the most points wins the award.

Days after the 2018 ceremony where Real Madrid talisman Luka Modric won, the award was rocked by a huge scandal.

It became known to the public that a ‘fake journalist’ was able to cast his votes, with neither the journalist or the publication he was supposedly working for actually existing.

Abdou Bonia, from the Comoros, was down as working for ‘albaladcomores.com’.

Luka Modric won the 2018 award despite 'fake votes' being cast (Getty)

It turned out the site had been inactive for six years and no one named Abdou Bonia ever worked there.

Toimimou Abdo, who worked as a photographer for the newspaper when it still existed, told alwatan.net: “I'm surprised to see that the Albakad Comores exists. As far as is white, the newspaper has been closed for six years.”

The fake journalist voted for then Paris Saint-Germain superstar Kylian Mbappe as his no.1 pick, with Modric in second, Cristiano Ronaldo in third, Eden Hazard in fourth and finally Liverpool star Mohamed Salah in fifth.

Ultimately, the fake votes didn’t make much of an impact with Modric winning by a whopping 277 points anyway.

Vinicius Jr and co will be hoping there is no such repeat on Monday evening.