France Football’s prestigious award Ballon d’Or 2022 is coming soon. It will be held on 17th October 2022. They have now revealed all the nominees for the 4 awards given at the ceremony. However, there is a controversy among the nominees for the Men’s Ballon d’Or 2022 award.

30 nominees for the Men’s Ballon d’Or 2022 award:

Thibaut Courtois

Rafael Leão

Christopher Nkunku

Mohamed Salah

Joshua Kimmich

Trent Alexander-Arnold

Vinicius JR

Bernardo Silva

Luis Díaz

Robert Lewandowski

Riyad Mahrez

Casemiro

Heung-Min Son

Fabinho

Karim Benzema

Mike Maignan

Harry Kane

Darwin Núñez

Phil Foden

Sadio Mané

Sébastien Haller

Luka Modrić

Antonio Rüdiger

Cristiano Ronaldo

Kevin De Bruyne

Dušan Vlahović

Virgil van Dijk

João Cancelo

Kylian Mbappé

Erling Haaland



Lionel Messi isn’t present in the list of Ballon d’Or nominees which shocked everyone, whereas his compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo made a record 18th appearance in the Ballon d’Or nominees.

The organizers of the Ballon d’Or award (via Marca) have now given an explanation on Cristiano Ronaldo is present but Messi is absent from the Ballon d’Or 2022 nominees list.

Here’s why Cristiano Ronaldo is present but Messi is absent from the Ballon d’Or 2022 nominees list

They first pointed out to the current criteria of the award are based on the football season and not the calendar year and that Messi’s performances were below par in the 2021-22 season. He scored just six goals in Ligue 1, while Real Madrid eliminated PSG from the Champions League in the round of 16.

Whereas, Cristiano Ronaldo scored six goals in the Champions League group stage which took Manchester United into the round of 16 and he finished the 2021-22 season with a total of 32 goals in 49 games across all competitions.

So, this was enough to get Ronaldo into the Ballon d’Or nominees list and be in the top tier of elite football players, even if he isn’t one of the main contenders for the trophy.

Noted