Vinicius Junior took to social media to react after finishing second in the Ballon d’Or voting behind Manchester City’s Rodri - and rather than any kind of congratulations to the Spanish star, vowed to repeat his own campaign “ten times” over if he needed to, to earn recognition with the game’s top individual prize.
The Brazilian forward had been seen as the favourite to win for most of the build-up towards the France Football ceremony in Paris on Monday night, but shortly beforehand, rumours emerged that Rodri had in fact claimed top spot in voting.
That led to Real Madridopting against travelling with a delegation for the awards night, as is usually done, meaning even though they won in best men’s team, best coach (Carlo Ancelotti) and a shared award of the Gerd Muller trophy (Kylian Mbappe), nobody from the Santiago Bernabeu club was on hand to receive any awards, nor were any recorded messages sent in.
Following the culmination of the ceremony, where Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmati won the Feminin award and Rodri claimed the men’s prize, Vinicius immediately posted on X “I'll do it 10 times if I have to. They're not ready.”
While George Weah was preparing to read out the winner’s name on stage in Paris, several shouts of “Vini” could be heard from the crowd, before Rodri - on crutches as he recovers from injury - headed up to claim his prize.
Real Madrid were widely criticised by social media users for essentially boycotting the awards night, with some feeling it showed a lack of respect to other players and clubs and others merely seeing it as another entitled act from a club which has long been perceived as feeling that injustices towards them are injustices towards all of football.
One of Vinicius’ teammate also posted on X, with Eduardo Camavinga claiming “football politics” saw the award erroneously handed to Rodri.
Real were thrashed 4-0 by arch rivals Barcelona in El Clasico at the weekend, with the Catalan outfit present at the Ballon d’Or awards ceremony where they won the best women’s team trophy and winger Lamine Yamal picked up the Kopa Trophy for best under-21 player.
