Walid Acherchour calls the Ballon d'Or ranking a scandal
In the waiting room of the Ballon d’Or gala, the microphones turn on as the verdict is announced: Harry Kane is crowned the best player in the world, ahead of Kylian Mbappé and the young prodigy Lamine Yamal who occupy the second and third places respectively, while PSG, alias Paris Saint‑Germain, watches, outraged, at the absence of its senior players among the awardees.
Rodri and Lionel Messi round out the world Top 5, while the leading Paris Saint‑Germain player, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, is only awarded sixth place, just ahead of Ousmane Dembélé, who is ranked seventh.
Acherchour's reaction
Walid Acherchour's total incomprehension erupts as soon as he gets on the microphone. He describes the absence of Parisians in the Top 5 as “furious madness”, stating: “Zero Parisian in the Top 5 at the Ballon d’Or, that’s madness. It’s a scandalous ranking, Dembélé and Olise seventh and ninth… We are truly out of our minds.”
The RMC journalist reminds that last season saw Paris Saint‑Germain achieve a historic back‑to‑back, the strongest and most powerful in his view, but that the Ballon d’Or jury wiped the slate clean of that achievement. He believes the ranking flatly denies the reality of the Parisian campaign.
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Club's epic journey
Acherchour highlights the hellish journey of the capital’s club, which eliminated Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and then Bayern Munich. The 5‑4 semi‑final victory over the Bavarian giant was described as a “football must‑see” and the “greatest semi‑final of all time”. In his view, no collective performance should be ignored.
He also criticises that, despite a spectacular collective hegemony, no Paris Saint‑Germain player appears in the Top 5. He argues that, in a year when the World Cup did not produce any overwhelming individual brilliance, logic should have placed the PSG virtuosos or Khvicha Kvaratskhelia higher in the ranking.
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“It should be sweating, and there, nothing sweats, not even a drop,” he laments, denouncing a jury impermeable to Parisian collective genius. For Acherchour, the gap between the reality of a season dominated by Paris Saint‑Germain and the conservatism of individual votes remains a scandal.