The organisers of the Ballon d’Or ceremony have been criticised in Italy for forgetting to honour Italy World Cup winner Paolo Rossi.
As part of the France Football event in Paris, which saw Lionel Messi given the award yet again ahead of Robert Lewandowski and Jorginho, there was also an In Memoriam segment dedicated to the football legends we lost over the last 12 months.
This included an homage to Diego Armando Maradona and Gerd Muller.
However, they forgot to give similar deference to Rossi, who after all won the Ballon d’Or in 1982 after taking Italy to the World Cup triumph.
It raised some eyebrows in the Italian media, which France Football chief Pascal Ferré promptly scoffed at.
“We don’t want to get into this sort of controversy, anything I say would be twisted. We cannot read every aspect of the ceremony in a controversial way,” Ferré told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“If needs be, I will speak directly to the family of Paolo Rossi.”
Rossi died in December 2020 at the age of 64 after a long illness.
He won the Ballon d’Or in 1982 ahead of Zibi Boniek and Alain Giresse, having scored six goals in the 1982 World Cup for Italy.
Pablito Rossi went on to win the European Cup with Juventus in 1985, the UEFA Supercup and the Cup Winners’ Cup, adding to his two Serie A titles.
They were busy counting PSG’s money.
But what an arrogant response. You would expect a simple apology and then moving on.
Who do these arrogant fools think they are! I find the whole thing a hollow, uncredited prize. I understand football is all about opinion but what makes these muppets opinion that of any note?
he played for Juventus, look at the current state of football owned by Oil and strings are attached to
the puppets in front of the crowd
the sad part is the footballers have no respect for one another and won’t take a stand and call this facade what it is.
all hail the Amir’s of UEFA and FiFA
Horrible arrogant bastards Rossi was a legend rip ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Next time give the Ballon to Nasser Al-Khelaifi directly please. No need for any boring ceremonies.
This boot should have went to Lew from Poland is what the consensus is around the world
As for the guy that ran this boot thing well he went to have coffee with Blatter who refused to come on the pitch to give Italy the WC trophy in 06
Due to this a bias and more all the more reason why a FIFA inquiry needs to be opened on Switzerland for alleged irregularities (offering gifts to N Ireland thanking them to help them knock Italy out of same group and then under mysterious events win on Bulgaria 20-0 in the 2nd half) For people that are unaware Bulgaria made a semi final WC in 94 and that is how Baggio got hurt and in the final was not fully fit. Bulgaria is not really a minnow team I would rate them maybe a B- they are a resilient team that cause other teams problems, to lose 20-0 is a close encounter of the fourth kind, right out of pluto
Definitely it was a serious thing.. Paolo Rossi is a football legend, he should have not been ignored.
Unfortunately Jarod, they will not punish Switzerland. FIFA president Gianni Infantino who is of Italian decent is in fact a Swiss citizen and there is no way this will take place. Could you imagine if they did and allowed Italy to progress, half of the world would think that we corrupted them. I think it is best to leave things alone and lets try to win the semi and hopefully even the final. As mentioned before, I think all 12 teams at the play offs should be at the WC instead of 2nd tier teams. Unfortunately we do risk just like all the others and now all they can do is play their heart out and give their 100% commitment and hopefully we can have some luck and get there. We must be positive and leave negative comments behind.
Unfortunately Jarod, they will not do that. Could you imagine if they did and allowed Italy to go instead of Switzerland, we will be accused of corruption. Leave it be and lets try to win the semi and final and hopefully go to Qatar.
France Football was out of order on Pablito who was awesome. Great player and Champion.